On Tuesday at about 4pm, Lee Sheng-yi (李勝義) threw back a final sip of snake liquor, slapped his knees and stood up ready to head for the nearby township of Mituo in Kaohsiung County to earn a couple thousand extra NT dollars performing as a spirit guide at the funeral for a man surnamed Wu (吳).
It's just a side job to supplement the income he earns with a mobile hardware shop, that he's gerry-rigged onto the back of a little blue truck, but it helps. The good part about his part-time gig, Lee said, is that there's little competition, since most spirit guide troupes have disbanded over the past decade. The bad part is that the groups disbanded because there's little demand for their services and his troupe may be the next to call it quits.
"Not many families go for the tradition of inviting spirit guides these days. Times have changed and people think troupes like ours are too weird or inappropriate. I'd give us another few years," Lee said. And with that, he gathered up his ornate red headgear, his curved horn and his Gibson Les Paul and then scurried out of his garage-cum-living room to meet up with the four other members of his troupe at the home of the deceased.
One tradition among many
The variety show-style spirit guide performance (
Lee, who's been a part of spirit guide groups for over three decades, now leads a troupe with five members -- a male musician, a male master of ceremonies, and three women who represent a pretty young daughter, a dutiful wife and a loving mother.
Originally, there were four musicians banging out the dissonant funerary music, but to save money, the music is played through a stereo and, in the case of the Wu funeral, cheap amplifiers with the reverb turned to maximum.
Lee on guitar -- in earlier times he played a moon harp (月琴) -- plucked out mournful melodies while providing back-up vocals to the master of ceremonies, who chants prayers and poetic odes to the deceased in Taiwanese. Occasionally, Lee took over as master of ceremonies, a role which requires training but not formal religious education.
Performances are divided into stages, the number of which varies, depending on how much the family is willing to pay. Shows typically last one hour. Between stages, the performers lead the family in prayers for the deceased. "First we call down the spirit and then we lead the spirit with blasts from the horn and the dancing down the path to heaven," said Chiu Lee-hua (邱麗花), who has also been in the business for 30 years, starting out as the "pretty daughter" and changing roles as she got older.
The spectacular aspect of the performance -- and the part that in contemporary minds is coming to be seen as being in poor taste -- is the dancers. Dressed in matching outfits that resemble cheerleader uniforms, the ladies in Lee's troupe danced sets of simple choreography with energetic hip swaying and body twisting that culminated several times in all three, including the oldest woman who plays the mother, dropping in synchronized splits, that I was told are the highlights of the show.
RSS