Last Friday in a Beijing theater, Li Baofeng and 10 of her colleagues from the Feng Yun Theatrical Company bowed to a small but enthusiastic audience after their performance of Sizhou Xi, a 200-year-old form of Chinese opera. It was the second time Ms. Li, 81, had performed in Beijing. The first time was 57 years earlier, for Mao Zedong at Zhongnanhai, the seat of the Chinese leadership.
上周五在北京的一座剧场，81岁的李宝凤和她在凤韵泗州戏剧团的10名演员，为人数不多但热情颇高的观众呈现了一台传统泗州戏演出。这是李宝凤第二次在北京唱戏；第一次还是57年前，在中南海为毛泽东表演。

That level of government blessing is now long gone for Sizhou Xi, in a fast-changing China where the proliferation of new forms of entertainment has sidelined many traditional arts. With the appearance in Beijing, Ms. Li hoped to win at least some recognition for Sizhou Xi and the small number of professionals who are still performing it.
时至今日，那样高规格的政府支持早已不再。中国正在急速改变，新的文化娱乐形式层出不穷，冲击着传统艺术。李宝凤这一次带戏班进京，就是希望再次获得哪怕是一定程度的认可，为泗州戏，也为仍在唱戏的那一小批演员。
Once popular in parts of Anhui, Shandong and Henan provinces, in central to northern China, Sizhou Xi features singing, dancing and acrobatics. Stories in the traditional repertoire range from historical epics about heroes to tales of common people, presented in local dialects.
有约200年历史的泗州戏曾经在安徽、山东、河南一带流传，表演融合唱、念、做、打，用当地方言演绎英雄史诗或寻常百姓故事。
In the 1950s, the new Communist government paid actors like Ms. Li to work in state-run troupes. But after the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Ms. Li, like many other artists with roots in the Republican period, was charged with counterrevolutionary crimes and sent to labor on a farm. Her younger colleagues were allowed to continue performing, but only in works glorifying the Communist revolution, whose productions were dictated by Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife.
20世纪50年代，新成立不久的共产党政府把像李宝凤这样的旧艺人们组织起来，成立国营剧团。到了文化大革命时期，李宝凤又和许多旧艺人一样，被打倒、下放劳动。年轻演员继续在剧团演出，但只能唱江青主导的革命样板戏。
The next setback came in the 1990s, with the withdrawal of state support. Although the end of the Cultural Revolution and the start of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of economic reforms had lifted political constraints and allowed a revival of many folk traditions in the 1980s, changing popular tastes and diminishing state involvement in less commercially viable art forms began taking their toll. Although the government has continued to finance theatrical groups that enjoy larger followings, such as forms of Beijing Opera, practitioners of more local forms are now largely on their own, dependent on dwindling audiences.
第二次打击来自90年代，国家的支持消失了。虽然文革结束，80年代邓小平的经济改革政策放松了政治上的禁锢，民间传统得到复苏，但大众的口味却在变化，政府对缺乏经济价值的艺术形式削减了支持，传统文化又遇挫折。政府仍然支持较大的剧种，比如京剧，但地方小剧种的从业者基本只能靠着逐渐缩小的观众群体自立更生了。
To save her ancient art, Ms. Li and her colleagues took decidedly modern measures this year. To raise the money for the troupe’s journey from Bengbu, a town in the central province of Anhui, to Beijing, they turned to smartphones.
这一次，为筹集从安徽蚌埠到北京演出的费用，李宝凤等人动用了现代技术手段——他们选择了智能手机。
In September, He Gongyi, a Beijing-based nongovernmental organization dedicated to reviving traditional culture, helped Ms. Li set up a fund-raising campaign on WeChat, a popular messaging app run by Tencent. The wallet service of WeChat links directly to the user’s bank account, allowing a donation to be made with a few taps on the touch screen of a phone.
9月的时候，致力于重建乡土文化的北京草根公益组织帮助凤韵剧团发起了一个微信端的募捐活动。微信的电子钱包应用与用户的银行账户关联，利用这种技术支持，只要在手机触屏上动动手指，即可完成捐款。
Within four days, they reached their target of 30,000 renminbi, or about $5,000, with donations from 998 people, said Ku Zheng, He Gongyi’s chief executive.
和公益总干事库征说，他们在四天中筹到了目标金额3万元。998人解囊相助。
Philanthropy in China has only recently begun tapping mobile payments, but the approach is fast gaining in popularity.
公益事业开始借助移动支付技术，在中国是相对晚近的事，但已经十分红火。
Tencent opened its WeChat service to donors in October 2013. Now more than half of the 3.88 million people giving to charities via Tencent are doing so on their phones, said Wu Ting, Tencent’s senior program manager for its charity platforms. People also tend to give more when they make the donation on a mobile device, about three times the amount given on a computer, she said.
腾讯公司于2013年10月启动微信公益平台，腾讯公益的高级项目经理吴婷说，现在通过腾讯公益向慈善项目捐款的388万多人中，超过一半是在手机上完成捐款的。人们在手机上也往往倾向于捐得更多，她说，大约是在PC端的三倍。
The typical donor is a young man between 15 and 29, giving small amounts well below 100 renminbi, Ms. Wu said. But the number of potential donors is huge. Tencent said it had 438 million active WeChat users as of August, making it possible to raise substantial amounts in a short time.
吴婷说，腾讯公益平台上的捐款人多数是男性，年龄在15到29岁之间，捐赠金额都为小额，远低于100元。但庞大的用户群是互联网公益的关键。腾讯8月份宣称有4.38亿活跃用户，因此网络募捐可以短时间内筹集大笔资金。
“In one case, 540,000 renminbi was raised in three days to help save a premature baby in Hubei Province,” Ms. Wu said.
“有一个案例，用户三天筹集了54万元，为了抢救湖北一个早产儿，”吴婷说。
In total, more than 228 million renminbi has been donated through Tencent’s online charity platform since it was introduced in 2007. Alipay, affiliated with the online retailer Alibaba, says it has processed more than 212 million renminbi in donations on its charity platform since 2010.
自从2007年腾讯公益平台上线以来，募捐金额已超2.28亿元。阿里巴巴集团的附属企业支付宝的公益平台，2010年以来募集了超过2.12亿元。
“I cannot thank you enough for helping us make this happen,” Ms. Li said to her audience last Friday after her troupe’s production of “Pin Nu Lei,” or “Tears of the Poor Girl,” the story of a fisherman’s daughter, whose abuse at the hands of her snobbish mother-in-law and overbearing sister-in-law drives her to suicide.
“我万分感谢大家帮我实现梦想，让我站在这个舞台上，”周五的演出结束后，李宝凤对观众说。她的学生和同事演出了传统剧目《贫女泪》，讲的是一个渔家女被势利眼的婆婆和凶悍妯娌虐待而自杀的故事。
The life of a Sizhou Xi performer in 2014 is very different than it was in 1957, when Ms. Li’s troupe was on a local government payroll and honored with an audience including Mao, said Lu Xianwei, Ms. Li’s grandson and a social media manager for an Internet company in Beijing who managed the fund-raising for Feng Yun.
李宝凤的孙子吕咸蔚说，今天泗州戏演员的处境已经远非1957年可比。那年，李宝凤在国营剧团，而且还能在北京得到毛泽东等领导人的接见。吕咸蔚在北京一家网站做新媒体运营，他帮助策划了这次手机募捐和进京演出。
“After the government disbanded the state-run troupe,” Mr. Lu said, “my grandma founded this troupe with some of those actors, who had lost their jobs but wanted to keep on performing.”
“国营剧团解散以后，我的祖母成立了这个民营剧团，和那些还想唱戏的下岗演员一起，”吕咸蔚说。
Families in rural Anhui Province still hire the performers for weddings, funerals or ancestor worship ceremonies. But the art form is struggling amid competition from modern entertainment. “Younger people don’t want to watch Sizhou Xi or make it a career,” Mr. Lu said.
今天在安徽农村，人们遇到婚丧嫁娶和祭祖之类的大事，仍然会请戏班。但旧戏在现代娱乐形式的竞争中处境艰难。“现在年轻人都不怎么看泗州戏了，也不愿意干这一行，”吕咸蔚说。
Feng Yun has taken to the road in search of private patrons, but there aren’t many, Mr. Lu said. Even when the group does secure donations, as it did for the Beijing appearance, fund-raising might not be a long-term solution if popular interest is fading.
凤韵剧团通过民间演出维持，但愿意请戏班的人少了，他说。而且，虽然这一次进京演出做到了自筹资金，也不是长久之计。
“I hope the government will do more for us.” he said.
吕咸蔚说：“我还是希望政府能够重视。”
Government support can make a difference. In 2012, when Feng Yun participated in a government-paid cultural program to tour villages in Anhui, it staged 70 performances, Mr. Lu said. Last year, without government backing, Feng Yun was able to put on only a dozen performances.
政府的支持的确至关重要。据吕咸蔚说，2012年凤韵剧团搭上了当地政府三下乡的项目，有机会演了70场；去年没能争取到政府项目，他们只演了十几场而已。
In 2006, the Chinese government added Sizhou Xi to its intangible cultural heritage list, alongside Beijing Opera and Hui Ju, another form of theater that originated in Anhui. But some say that the government has a moral obligation to do more, given the consequences of its own shifting policies and the resources it still controls. (The stage on which Feng Yun performed last week was made available free of charge by the Dongcheng District government in Beijing.)
2006年泗州戏被列为国家非物质文化遗产。同年获此称号的还有京剧和徽剧。有观点认为，政府有道义上的责任，应该做得更多，特别是考虑到以往忽左忽右的文化政策，而且政府毕竟仍然掌握着巨大的资源。（这次凤韵剧团进京演出的舞台就是北京东城区文化馆免费提供的。）
“Traditional theaters are in a mess today because of the culture policies of previous leaders,” said Fu Jin, a professor at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts in Beijing. “They financed theater professionals for decades without them having to learn about the market, and then they changed their mind and cut the cord. Of course, the government has a political and cultural responsibility to fix this.”
“今天传统戏曲处境艰难也是因为之前政府的政策造成的，”中国戏曲学院教授傅谨说。“他们一直出资办国营剧团，演员不需要了解市场，然后他们忽然又改了政策，放手不管。因此今天的政府当然有政治责任和文化责任，不能不管。”
But Mr. Fu sees signs of hope.
但傅谨也指出一些希望的迹象。
“The market may still be depressed, but this past decade has seen some changes,” he said. “More people, many of them the younger generation who will pay more than their fathers and grandfathers for theater, are becoming interested again, and a taste for authentic, centuries-old plays is coming back. There is something about art that makes it worth preserving even when the market says otherwise. The government should not be shortsighted.”
“虽然今天的市场仍然不景气，但最近这10年的情况也是有变化的，”他说。“更多的人开始感兴趣了，而且很多是年轻人，他们比老一辈的观众更能接受较高的票价，而且在很多地方，对传统戏的兴趣超过了对新编戏的兴趣。即使市场暂时不能支持一种艺术，艺术本身也还是值得保存下去。政府不应该短视。”