Even if your Suzhouhua (Suzhou dialect) is a little rusty, you'll likely enjoy an afternoon spent at the charming Suzhou Pingtan Museum (Sūzhōu Píngtán Bówùguǎn, 苏州戏评弹物馆).

Pingtan (Píngtán, 评弹) is a folk art tradition that first emerged in the Ming and early Qing dynasties, a Suzhou-specific version of the folktale-telling tradition of Shouchang (Shuōchàng, 说唱), "to speak and sing." Involving either singing in the local dialect, or storytelling without musical accompaniment, it served as a way to transmit grand historical epics, with one part performed over the course of a day and with the whole story sometimes lasting for weeks.

The museum, not far from the Kunqu Opera Musueum, plays an important role in keeping the tradition alive, after a period in the latter half of the twentieth century when it looked like it may be dying out.

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