Originating from Suzhou, it is a blend of the Chinese narrative musical traditions of pinghua and tanci, with roots tracing back to the Song dynasty and influences from Wuyue culture.

[1] This art form, shaped by Pingtan artists, has garnered immense popularity in Jiangnan.

Despite its simplicity in form, Pingtan's content is rich, incorporating techniques like storytelling, joke cracking, music playing and aria singing.

[3] Although it began in Suzhou, Pingtan experienced significant growth in Shanghai during the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, spurred by the development of commerce and culture.

Since then, Pingtan has evolved into a new form of performance, continuously innovating while preserving its traditional essence.

[6] The rise of records and radio stations also played an important role in popularizing Pingtan art.

[8] Based on traditional long story-telling, shorter and medium-sized stories were created, reflecting modern life.

Both primarily employ prose, with some rhythmic segments like odes, chants, and verse dialogues for recitation.

Different stylistic schools emerged based on variations in language and character portrayal, such as: Fangkou: Rigorous narration with fixed expressions.

[11] Suzhou Pinghua’s repertoire includes over 50 traditional works, such as historical sagas like Three Kingdoms, Sui-Tang Yanyi, and Western Han, collectively called "Armor Stories" for their martial themes.

Shorter chivalric tales, or "Fist Stories," include Water Margin and Seven Heroes and Five Gallants.

[13] Suzhou Tanci pursues artistic ideals of reason, taste, humor, refinement, and skill, with "reason" emphasizing coherence, "taste" enduring thoughtfulness, "humor" eliciting laughter, "refinement" showcasing elegance, and "skill" demonstrating artistry.

[14] Traditional works, mostly long-form, include The Three Smiles, The Legend of the White Snake, and Miao Jin Feng.

Suzhou Pingtan which involves singing and storytelling, is performed solo, in duet or as a trio.

The special art Pintan performance is concentrated on the five words, joking, instrument-playing, singing and acting.

Instrument-playing is used to assist singing in order to make it more musical and filled with strong sense of rhythm.

Due to this development, Suzhou Pingtan has a great diversity of styles in singing and storytelling.

[20] Simply, Pingtan is a kind of talking and singing art which uses Wu dialect to tell stories.

On the contrary, it tends to disclose objective laws and essence of real life by means of shaping vivid characters.

If audience find the contents go against objective laws or have no references, it will be hard to arouse people's interests and bring their imagination.

Quyi can be divided into several parts according to the contents: story-telling, just joking for fun, singing songs to express feelings.