The Art of Shuochang Survey: People Outside of Zhongshan Hall

Before we started our research on the art of shuochang, most of us have had some exposures to shuochang, and over half of us had seen or heard shuochang related performances. How well do the people in the community know about shuochang? We took the opportunity at Zhongshan Hall to ask people about how well do they know about and their preferences for shuochang. This survey was carried out around 6 p.m. In order to facilitate the process, we designed a set of online survey to be conducted on a tablet.

Focus of survey

Steps to conduct the survey

Findings

Research subject: people in front of Zhongshan Hall│ Number of surveys: 92 │ Number of males and females: Male = 41, Female = 51

Q: Do you know what is the art of shuochang? A: Over 60% of respondents know about shuochang.
Q: What types of shuochang do you know of? A: Most people know about cross talks and tongue twisters; jing yun da gu is not well-known (similar to the findings at school)
Q: Which type of shuochang do you prefer? A: The percentage of respondents picking shuochang as their favorite is really high (similar to the preference of our students).
Q: Have you seen or heard any type of shuochang performance? A: Most respondents have seen some type of shuochang performance. Among the respondents, cross talks is the most popular answer, followed by storytelling with clappers, tongue twisters, Taiwanese opera, and fast clapper talks.
Q: Have you learned any of the following types of shuochang? A: Most respondents have not learned shuochang before. Among those who have, most of them have learned cross talks or tongue twisters.

Findings

In this survey, we found that as high as 80% of the respondents like shuochang. However, most of them did not receive any shuochang trainings. We believe the reason might be because not many schools offer shuochang as a course like Yu-Tsai does. Furthermore, after tabulating the results, we found that most people have some basic knowledge of shuochang. Among different types of shuochang, cross talks is preferred by most people. Those who prefer cross talks have seen or attended some types of cross talks performances. It seems like cross talks is really a common form of shuochang.

Surveying highlights

│We are not only have online survey but also have paper-based survey.│

Source:：Survey analysis: Jessica, the Original Artsy Shuochang Posse / Pictures: the Original Artsy Shuochang Posse