For entertainment , try and track down a performance of Chaoju, the indigenous opera style . There's actually an old opera house on Yian Lu, parallel with Taiping Lu and one block west, though this has been converted into a cinema, sometimes screening videotaped opera performances. Your best bet now for live action are the infrequent shows in Xihu Park, most likely during festivals. Chaoju is quite listenable, with little of the warlike clanging and falsetto singing of Beijing's theatre. The plots, if you can follow them, tend to involve witty cautionary tales about lax sexual morality.