We stopped over at Lumut (Perak) on our way from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur. We were lucky to watch the Chinese Opera performing at the local Chinese temple.

We were even luckier to be granted access to the back stage and take a few pictures of the performers preparing for the evening show.

This opera is composed of 30+ performers coming from Southern China.

Every performer started preparing with pinkish foundation.

They were all very experience in doing own make-up.

It was fascinating to be able to watch two back stage preparation on 2 consecutive weekends. Last week was the Ramayana Ballet at Prambanan (Indonesia).

The difference was both male and female performers were preparing on the same area.

Once the facial make-up was done, the performers started to tidy up the hair so that they can wear the heavy ‘hat”.

Like most of the opera performances, the dresses are really colourful.

Few of the lead performers have to put up the heavy flags on their back.

It was no easy task, and helping hands were welcomed. The spot light was on and the crowd already gathered at the front stage.

It was time for me to leave the back stage and join the crowd at the front.

Such performances are very popular in the Ghost Month to please the gods and spirits.

Some locals believe in the taboo that the front row of the seats were meant for the ‘spirits’. We could clearly notice that all the crowd were at the back rows except us and few kids (who were as naive as us).

So we quickly move the second row and continue watching the show (until the Olympic Games started direct broadcast on the Badminton Man Final). So we did not manage to complete watching the performance and ended up in the nearby pub cheering for Datuk Lee Chong Wei (Malaysians only hope for gold medal in London 2012 Olympic game).

It has been a pleasure chatting with the Chinese performers, and of course they were supporting Lin Dan (China badminton player).