During my childhood, there was a temple near my home. When there were important celebrations, there were oftentimes a variety of outdoor Taiwanese opera performances. Folk opera and puppet shows were the most common temple celebration performances. In that era, temple celebrations did not mean outdoor opera performances, nor Xue Pinggui’s Eastern conquests, Wang Baochuan’s long wait in a cold kiln, or the stories of the Seven Chivalrous and Five Righteous and Guan Gong killing six generals in passing five military bases. Instead, the focus was the sounds of gongs and drums of the outdoor opera. The waves of these sounds called people to gather to buy ice cream, cotton candy, or grilled squid to satisfy their craving. It was as if the performance on the stage was for the elderlies and the deity only. Bouncing and playing were really the desires of the children’s heart.    

During this time, the overall form of puppet shows did not consist of any sound or visual effects. Some puppet shows had very coarse carvings and there were no ornate decorations. However, the performance was in no way inferior to today’s performances. The flips, throws and jumps on the stage were often able to catch the eyes of the audience. Even if there were only a few minutes, the flips and throws of action scenes and the sounds of gongs and drums could truly capture the audience in the moment. Perhaps there was no way for the children to remember the entire story of the performance, but the memories of those wonderful “stunt” scenes are still vivid even now.

In the 70th year of the Republic [1980’s], with the rapid popularization of TV, there was a TV set in almost every household. There was a fixed puppet show everyday at noon. At that time the “Shih Yan-Wen” series Mr Huang Jun-xiong’s “Luhe” Heroes series was most prevalent and well known to the public. From Shih Yan-Wen to the Mirror Man, or the various characters among the “Luhe” heroes, all were known by people, from students to workers. In the children’s world, collecting cards and picture books of the puppet show characters became the most popular activity of the time. The content of the puppet shows incorporates ancient prose and the teachings of filial piety and righteousness, interspersed fight scenes, suspensory and treacherous plots, and the death of the heroes and rebirth in a different form, and are accompanied by a debriefing of the narrators and music for each main character’s entrance to the scene. The shows were full of climaxes had the feel of “telling a thousand stories by one mouth, making a million soldiers with ten fingers.” During the golden time of puppet shows on the TV, they were even broadcasted for two hours in Saturday and Sunday afternoons with Mandarin dubbing. Of these the Huang Junxiong version of Journey to the West was most unforgettable to me. Despite the plot deviations from the original Journey to the West, it presented the story differently, making it quite fascinating. At that time, when the puppet shows were broadcast on the TV, almost everyone would stay home to watch the show. The GIO found that the society was over-zealous about puppet shows and banned their broadcast on TV. Thus the enthusiasm towards puppet shows cooled down and they even completely disappeared from TV for a time.

Guo Min, the more unforgettable character to me among the Liuhe Heroes (Copied from Youtube)

The disappearance of puppet shows led to the loss of some audiences. However, with the introduction of computer effects, different scenes and styles were created. Compared to the puppet shows in the past, the joint movements and lavishness of the puppets’ costumes surpassed those of old. At the same time, they also had a dedicated TV channel, using computer special effects to shoot brilliant fight scenes, resulting in unprecedented popularity. Nevertheless, it is disappointing because, although the old puppet shows did not have scenes as gorgeous, sound as good or visual effects, they had more humanity and livelier stories and the plots of traditional style puppet shows were more memorable. The introduction of animation in recent years can really be considered the application of digital techniques; nonetheless it seems to have less cultural content. Despite what many people say—that the stories incorporate many current issues and are more closely related to the lives of modern people, using puppets wearing traditional costumes to discuss current social changes seems somewhat absurd. But the whole scenic change makes for a more dynamic and even more dazzling—and, undeniably, another kind—of feeling. Recently, puppet shows have also kept up with the 3D trend to keep up with the pace of digitalization. It was mentioned in the news that 3D enhances the on-the-spot effect of puppet shows. The reporting is as the following:

Regarding digital archives, many units are using 3D scanning and are committed to the preservation of puppetry skills. Professor Li Caiyin and student Lin Zhizhong of National Cheng-chi University’s Department of Information Science proposed a research project for a design tool to realize traditional puppetry performances through program animation. The program animation, along with user-friendly input command, creates puppetry animated performances. Its main purpose is to preserve the basic performing techniques of puppet shows from various eras through 3-dimensionalization, relying on the huge database to compute and record operations of puppet shows and the evolution of puppets. One thing Professor Li said identified with my feelings: “Computer animation is a means to help promote and archive this traditional art. The two are not mutually exclusive but complement one another.” The only thing regrettable is that the traditional techniques have been saved on the computer, but the content and the temporal and spatial history of the plays cannot be retained very effectively.

We cannot have the best of both worlds. The vanishing of the times belonging to outdoor opera and the accompanying elements, (i.e. temple entrances, sounds of gongs and drums and the noise of hawkers and children) give us a sense of loss. But traditional puppet shows are presented to our eyes in a different form through digitalization, which is another type of pride for the Taiwanese people. Especially during the World Games in Kaohsiung, modern computerized puppetry was displayed on the big screen in the stadium. The images were presented in front of the whole world. We were moved and proud. Fortunately, Taiwan has preserved a culture and allowed that culture to continue on with digitalization.