Lao She Teahouse! 老舍茶馆

It's the Lao She Teahouse! Complete with on-stage Kungfu performances, Voice Mimicry, Beijing Opera (very different than western opera), Acrobatics, a magic show, Qing dynasty style dancing, Acrobatic-Tea-Serving (i'll post a video somewhere below) Monologues, Traditional Chinese Orchestral Music, oh and TEA (hence, Teahouse). It's a whirlwind of traditional Chinese culture, and definitely worth your time if you ever come to Beijing. I'll post a slideshow later on in the post, but I'd rather start out with a video.

This is just a compilation I made of a few different performances that I liked. There were other really cool ones as well, I just didn't get a video of everything.

This is the 生 Sheng (more specifically, 武生 Wu Sheng) role in Beijing opera, the main male part who is involved in several on-stage combat scenes with other male characters.

This next character is known as the 净 Jing role, played by a male and characterized by a painted face or mask. This particular 净 Jing was showing off what is known in Beijing opera as a "trick". Basically, he somehow alternates between 6 or so different masks in an instant, and I couldn't figure out exactly how--all of a sudden he throws his head back, or turns away for a second, and the mask completely changes. I would have taken a video, but it wasn't allowed for this part of the performance.

In addition to the performances, there are waiters who walk around serving the special Longjing tea 龙井茶, and filling up your plate with small traditional chinese desserts。It's slightly tourist-oriented (my host family had actually never been before), but it's definitely still worthwhile in my opinion.