A group of traditional Taiwanese puppet theater companies yesterday asked the Tainan City Government to allow them to perform at temple festivals, as the troupes have been unable to stage shows amid a level 3 COVID-19 alert in effect since May.
Tainan City Councilor Chen Yi-chen (陳怡珍) of the Democratic Progressive Party said he received a petition from the groups, led by the Goodoo Puppet Troupe (古都掌中劇團), calling on the city to permit small-scale puppet shows as COVID-19 restrictions are eased.
These performers need shows to survive, as they could go bankrupt after not performing over the past two months, Chen said.
Photo courtesy of Tainan City Councilor Chen Yi-chen
Budaixi, or glove puppetry, is a traditional Taiwanese folk art that is often stage performed during temple festivals.
Tainan Civic Affairs Bureau Director Chiang Ling-huang (姜淋煌) said that while some restrictions have been eased, the level 3 alert remains in effect.
“If we allow outdoor events for traditional puppetry, it would run counter to current regulations,” he said.
Tainan Cultural Affairs Bureau Director Yeh Tse-shan (葉澤山) said his agency would assess ways to allow for outdoor shows.
Proprietors of puppet troupes said the government’s ban is due to concerns of large crowds gathering at temples, so they prohibited Taiwanese opera and puppet shows.
“The thing is that puppet theater is small-scale, the purpose of which is to entertain the gods at temple events. Puppet shows nowadays have a different function than other cultural events; usually, not many people gather to watch, as they are staged to thank the gods residing at that temple,” one proprietor said. “We would like to urge the government to enable us to survive- by permitting shows.”
More than 60 puppet companies have signed the petition asking for central and local authorities to help them, Chen said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS