A documentary about the emotional bond between puppet theater masters Chen Hsi-huang (陳錫煌) and his father, Li Tien-lu (李天祿), is showing in theaters and winning acclaim from viewers.
Shortly after its release, the movie, Father (紅盒子), won the first prize in the Feature Films category at the 11th Chinese Documentary Festival in Hong Kong and became a box office hit in Taiwan, which is rare for a documentary.
However, amid all the praise and emotion, many viewers have expressed concern about the state of this traditional art.
Budaixi, or glove puppetry, was brought over to Han Chinese immigrant society in Taiwan from China’s Fujian Province during the Qing Dynasty. It continued to develop in Taiwan and became deeply rooted at the grassroots level, eventually transforming into a lively folk art popular at religious, celebratory, cultural and other big public activities.
Although the missionary George Mackay found theatrical performances in Taiwan rather off-putting, he made positive comments about the “puppet shows,” saying in his late-19th century memoir From Far Formosa: the Island, its People and Missions that they were “very popular among almost all classes of people, and are, in their way, decidedly clever.”
Puppet theaters once abounded nationwide and a picture of Taiwanese hand puppets was in 2006 picked by the public as the image most representative of the nation. Budaixi is indeed a treasured Taiwanese folk art.
Budaixi in Taiwan has been suppressed and modified, and has gone through various innovations and developments during different periods of foreign rule. Through these challenges, budaixi became a favorite of many Taiwanese and eventually evolved into its current unique form.
In other words, budaixi is not only an invaluable intangible national cultural asset, but also part of the collective memory of middle-aged and elderly Taiwanese.
One budaixi TV series claimed a viewership rating of 97 percent. Using Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), the TV series caused panic within the party-state apparatus, which was hostile to the Taiwanese mother tongue.
In 1974, TV stations were forbidden from broadcasting budaixi shows to promote Mandarin and because such shows had a “deleterious impact on work and rest in agriculture and industry.”
Afterward, preposterously, Mandarin-language budaixi appeared, which severely hurt the folk art’s development.
Chen’s remarks make it clear how ridiculous it is to use Mandarin rather than the mother tongue for glove puppetry.
“Staging budaixi without speaking in Hoklo is unbearable to listen to; using Mandarin is not pleasing to the ear, because it makes the performance so unnatural,” he said.
After the arbitrary suppression by the foreign rulers, the ban was lifted due to intense public opposition.
Traditional budaixi is extremely precious in that the performances can both be literary and a display of martial arts, providing mass entertainment while conveying artistic cultural values.
Even though its popularity has subsided in recent years, budaixi continues to touch people’s heart and win international recognition.
Puppet making, stage building, script writing, the masterly manipulation by the puppet master, the string and percussion orchestration, and incidental music compositions are pervaded by the flavor of Taiwan. Together, these elements represent an agglomeration of Taiwanese folk arts across disciplines.
For example, the making of the puppets — from props to costumes, including clothing, hats, armor, weapons and other ornaments — clearly showcase the distinctive characteristics of the five major roles: sheng (生), the male characters; dan (旦), the female characters; jing (淨), male supporting roles with painted faces that represent distinctive diverse personalities; mo (末), old male roles; and chou (丑), clown.
The spoken part of budaixi is equally distinctive: Its expressions are in Taiwanese Han language, a literary, elegant and succinct Hoklo. Suppressed for many years as a result of the Mandarin-first policy, the mother tongue has gradually waned, and the younger generation has far fewer chances to learn and appreciate the traditional art. Moreover, with the great diversity of new entertainment forms, budaixi performances are gradually disappearing.
However, given the right opportunity, budaixi can still resonate with audiences and win praise. The last 15 minutes of the film feature an authentic budaixi performance that caters to young and old, while at the same time appealing to refined tastes as well as lay people.
Even without dialogue, the puppets come to life through ingenious and masterly manipulation: the way the female characters move gracefully, flick their hair and open an umbrella; the way a young intellectual opens a paper fan, writes and applies their seal; the way vaudevillians fight, perform acrobatics from a swinging stick and spin plates with a rod.
This skillful and delicate manipulation infuses the puppets with life and overwhelms the audience. No wonder Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) once planned to buy all these movies. It was not surpising when after the screening, a college student approached director Yang Li-chou (楊力州), telling him with a heavy heart: “Now I will have to bid farewell to budaixi before I get a chance to know it.”
Apart from traditional budaixi, with its smaller puppets, there is a relatively new form that is created and shot to air as TV series or straight to video. The latter uses large, beautifully crafted puppets and filming techniques, as well as strong lighting and sound effects.
Pili International Multimedia’s budaixi TV series is the most distinctive model: The company has not only set up its own TV channel, but has also developed related merchandise. Putting aside the excitement and innovation, the newer Golden Light Puppetry tradition on TV should still be based on solid scriptwriting and substantial content to prosper.
Just like the mother tongues of Taiwan’s different ethnicities, traditional budaixi is at risk of dying. Yet, where there is a will there is a way.
On Oct. 28, Aboriginal leader Cheng-hiung Talavan of the Siraya community in Jioucengling (九層嶺) in Tainan’s Sinhua District (新化) received the Tainan Culture Award from Premier William Lai (賴清德).
To encourage more people to learn the Siraya language, Talavan has composed more than 60 songs that are easy to sing and pass on, allowing the language — once ruled “dead” — to be reclassified as currently undergoing a revival effort in a world language encyclopedia. One day, perhaps, Siraya will follow in the footsteps of Hebrew, the Jewish language that was successfully revitalized and became Israel’s official language.
Chen, who is nearly 90, has pledged to “never let go of traditional budaixi
Yang was right when he said that “as long as people are reluctant to see the tradition fade away, there will always be hope for its survival.”
Whether reviving a mother tongue or revitalizing budaixi, the same determination, confidence and effort is required on the part of Taiwanese.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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