Formed in the mid-19th century in Beijing, Jing Ju, or Peking Opera, has had a history of abover 200 years. Known as the quintessence of China, Jing Ju has highly abstract performance style, complicated and beautiful visual image, self-contained music structure and a large number of Chinese traditional ethics stories which are full of great artistic charm.

Legends, mythology, popular historical novels, and romances from ancient China are primary resources for the Jing Ju plays. Characters in Jing Ji are assigned to a role type according to their major personality traits and the circumstances in the play. The four major role types in Jing Ju plays are sheng, dan, jing (painted-face characters), and chou (lit. "ugly," clown characters), though the descriptions of the latter two have evolved since the Song dynasty.