Documentary director Yang Li-chou’s (楊力州) latest film, Father (紅盒子), has in the past couple of weeks been the nation’s highest-grossing film. Given its subject matter, this suggests that the public still wants to preserve traditional culture.
The film tells the life story of Chen Hsi-huang (陳錫煌), budaixi puppet theater master Li Tien-lu’s (李天祿) eldest son, who died in 1998.
It emphasizes the emotional attachment between father and son, and the efforts they have made to pass on the folk art.
The director spent 10 years making the film, which records the glorious heyday of budaixi, as well as its tearful decline.
Budaixi is a part of older people’s memories. Once a thriving art, it was suppressed by past governments and it gradually became marginalized.
A former ban on the use of Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) is another reason for the art’s decline.
The ghost of the party-state apparatus, which prevailed under martial law, still haunts Taiwan, and many younger people who do not speak Hoklo, or do not speak it well, are losing touch with their cultural roots.
The Ministry of Culture in 2009 recognized Chen as a preserver of important national traditional arts in the field of puppetry.
Growing up with his father, Chen was immersed in the world of puppetry and developed a strong emotional connection with it.
There was a time when he wanted to get away from it, but eventually he became strongly bonded with the traditional art.
Chen researched the craft of making puppets and building sets, as well as the performance art itself, with the aim of preserving the distinctly Taiwanese cultural tradition.
Yang’s lively narration gives viewers a window into Chen’s inner world while expressing the difficulties that face Hoklo, as the monologues and dialogues of budaixi come close to being lost forever.
Language is a tool that nations rely on for survival. It is an essential medium for conveying a nation’s culture. A native verbal art form will only feel genuine if it is performed in the native language.
In the film, Chen and the director emphasize the importance of Hoklo.
Taiwanese have been suppressed too long and too deeply, to the point where many of them no longer feel connected with their original mother tongue.
Budaixi can only be passed on if everyone cares enough about it.
The provision of Hoklo-language public TV stations is equally important. Taiwan’s cultural policies must provide more and better resources.
Taiwanese must cherish the few remaining artists, who are seen as national treasures, so that the knowledge they have gleaned throughout their lives can be taught in full to those willing to learn.
The mastery of budaixi starts from childhood — this is another message that the documentary tries to convey.
To pass the art of budaixi on to the next generation, the first task is to have more people speaking Hoklo, and speaking more of it.
With sufficient determination and the right policies, this rich and beautiful cultural craft can become a shining landmark of Taiwan in the sea of human civilization.
Liu Wei-ting is a university instructor.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS