In the past, all characters in Taiwanese Opera were played by male troupers, including the female lead（siao dan）character. In the 1930s, a few opera troupes began to hire females to play siao dan. Until the period of Indoor-Stage Taiwanese Opera, impoverished women tried to make a living by joining opera troupes, since then, females began to act on stage. Because female voice could naturally express the delicacy and subtlety of different emotions, thus the “weeping tune（Kau Diao）” was generated. Weeping tunes started to be incorporated into scripts, love stories and romantic scenes are naturally added into the drama. This change immediately appealed to large legions of female viewers, because female audience strongly felt that they could relate themselves to the plot and further, they could empathize with the female character.

The senior chief of the Ming Hwa Yuan, Mr. Chen Ming-ji felt the need to emphasize the romantic atmosphere of the drama, so he allowed females to play the female lead（siao dan）. However, most of the troupers brought their families to make a living by roving with the troupe. If he kept using males to play the male lead（siao sheng）, then, inevitably, the male lead would have to interact intimately with the female lead played by females. Mr. Chen thought this might cause family dispute among his troupe. He decided to make females cross-cast the male lead as well. Mr. Chen’s decision was generally adopted. In the end, almost all opera troupes used females to play all the characters. Some troupes even named themselves “Young Girl Opera Troupe” to attract attention. Hence, we can see that nowadays, divas of Taiwanese Opera, such as Miss Yang Li-hua, Miss Yeh Ching, and Miss Suen Tsuei-feng, are all fantastic female artists that has won great popularity by their charismatic appearance and dazzling stagecraft of the male lead（siao sheng）character.