To get more and deeper understanding to puppetry, we arranged a trip to Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum attentively. Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum is located in Yunlin County, the hometown of Mr. Hai-tai Huang, a master of puppetry of national treasure, and it is close to Changhua County. As it is near to Changhua and has rich contents to show, this helps us a lot to get the materials and know the culture of puppetry for our Cyberfair project. We bought the group tickets to enter the museum for a large number of members in our trip. Before entering, we showed our identity and purpose and got the consent of the ticket administrator before we took a picture. Upon arrival, we came across one fan of puppetry puppet, with a well-made puppet of Shih Yan-wen in his hand. We were excited and went to take a picture with it one by one. From the talks between our teacher and this fan, we knew that bought this at a price of 20,000ND, and he was allowed to access the museum free of charge for he is a frequent visitor here, from which we can see that he is different from others in terms of love to puppetry.
We took a picture with the puppet of Shih Yan-wen in the Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum. |
We saw a shop with a variety of gifts to sell as soon as we entered the museum, where there are many dolls of puppetry, so that we couldn’t help stopping there to watch. Also there are puppets wearing the costume of Hakka, showing the integration of Southern Fujian culture and Hakka culture; besides, there are numerous puppets of “golden light puppetry”. We took pictures without a stop so that we could enjoy afterwards.
We saw a shop with a variety of gifts to sell as soon as we entered the museum, where there are many dolls of puppetry, so that we couldn’t help stopping there to watch. | There are countless puppets in the museum, and each one has its own characteristics. |
Next, we came to the place to introduce the origin and development history of puppetry, where we saw how Mr. Hai-tai Huang popularized puppetry and touched the brilliant times of Toshio Huang puppetry. We as if went to the times when our parents were children, and it is an era greatly different from today when we always play with our smart phones.
They are brilliant. In the museum, we saw the detailed introduction on how Mr. Hai-tai Huang popularized puppetry, and we took a picture with Mr. Hai-tai Huang. | The Mr. Huang’s troupe was named as “Wu Zhou Yuan”, indicating that it will be well-known across the five continents in the world. |
Then, we came to one room regarding the DIY of Buda Opera. We took the puppets and operated them at random before the stage. Although we couldn’t master the essential skills of puppetry, we could entertain and enjoy ourselves.
We showed ourselves on the simple stage in the museum. | We showed ourselves to entertain ourselves and the visitors. |
In the end, the keynote coming to our eyes is the “Golden Glove Award” owners and their puppets on the second floor as well as the troupe introduction. It overwhelmed our stereotype that only old puppet operator can keep a foothold in the circle of puppetry, and we knew that there are many young forces joining this circle, which increased the richness of scripts and puppets of puppetry. We deeply realized the significance of this award, which could serve as a link between past and future.
We recorded the “Golden Glove Award” owners and their puppets. | Many owners are young, overwhelming our impression that only old puppet operator can keep a foothold in the circle of puppetry. |
Before our leaving, we also visited the detention house (hold the prisoners) in the museum and we closed ourselves inside and ridiculed each other. Those inside the detention house showed a pathetic expression on purpose, to amuse us, adding interest to this trip!
Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum was rebuilt on the basis of the original police station branch of Huwei Town, Yunlin County. The picture shows the appearance of Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum and our group photo. | In addition, the detention house was reserved for visitors to visit. |