Hand Puppetry

It was a unique experience to interact with the figures of 1970’s most popular TV entertainment -Hand Puppetry. Located on Yi Tong Street, Taipei, “See- Join Hand Puppet Theater” is an awesome place to have the stage experience, learn, interact and have fun with the traditional Taiwanese folk art- Hand Puppetry. Taiwanese cuisine is also offered before all the interacting activities.

The long term customers came to spend the afternoon together in the theater by playing games and drinking teas.

We got there around noon for lunch. We knew that the stage performance was only offered for the dinner time. With the warm hospitality of Master Bill Chen, the owner of the theater, we received and experienced much more than we expected by the time we left the theater. It also led me to become fascinated with the Hand Puppetry folk art history, figures, and performance. Thank you dearly, Master Chen!

Taiwanese Hand Puppetry is also named “Budasi”(布袋戲). It was originally brought over from southern part of China, Chuanchow and Changchow areas during the Ching Dynasty. Because of the movement is controlled by hands, it is also called “in-the-hand theater (Chang Chung Si,掌中戲). It was the main outdoor stage entertainment for the early period of Taiwan. Hand Puppetry was also known as “Classic Budasi”( 古典布袋戲) at that time.

After the retrocession of Taiwan, the performers of the hand puppet shows have integrated the art with modern visual sensibilities. Hand Puppetry was introduced in television and “Gold-Light” Hand Puppet (金光布袋戲) became so popular. The "Shih Yan Wen" (史豔文) and "2-Teeth" (Len Kee, 二齒) figures were introduced by Master Houng, Jun-Shyong (黃俊雄), who became the legendary characters of family TVs. All office work stopped during the day while Budasi was on TV. After 1998, the son of Master Houng renovated the Gold-Light Budasi with computer technology, and 3D animation to attract to younger audiences; “Pili Budasi” (霹靂布袋戲) was introduced and also led the Taiwan’s Budasi to the international stage until now.

Here are the sizes of the three generations of the Budasi figures: The Classic figure is about 30 cm tall, the Gold-Light figure about 45 cm, and the Pili figure about 80cm which weighs about 2 kg. In performing Classic Budasi, a performer could wear and switch to several figures on both hands during a show; however, a performer could only perform one Pili figure for one show because of the weight.

The body parts can move for the Pili figure while Classic figure can't. The body parts are controlled separately by another hand to make them lively. Here is the trick in controlling the eye movement: Pulling down the iron wire hidden inside the clothes to make the eyes close.

Budasi is not only offering skillful performance on the stage, but also presenting a piece of precious art display. A figure consists of three parts- Heads, Clothing and Headgear, and Weapons and Props. Budasi has also successfully introduced the traditional Chinese or Taiwanese legend stories to all ages of audiences. The difference between Budasi and western puppets is that Budasi shows mainly people figures while the western puppets animal figures.

The happy comedian figure can also perform fire show on the stage from his mouth. You can tell the burn mark around his mouth. A weapon is also an important part of the figure. How to pull out a sword would definitely need an intensive practice.

Here is the fun part! Master Chen was showing us some basic controlling skills of the figure. Right and Left hand movement; flying the figure with its two legs swinging back and forth; throwing the figure up vertically and catching it on his fingers. Believe me; it takes lots of eye-hand coordination!! He recommended us to practice these skills in bed with soft surface, so it will not damage the figure.

Here are the puppets for practicing. They were made sturdier than the display puppets. They were made with wooden head, hands, and feet while the display figures with plastics.

I am giving myself a few months to practice the above skills, and hopefully I will be able to achieve just one when we visit the Master again!

Lots of culture and folk art can be explored by just engaging in the Taiwan Hand Puppetry activities. This is just the start… will be sharing more when the discovery continues...

SEE-JOIN Hand Puppet Theater (敘舊布袋戲園)

2F, No 46, Yi-Tong Street , Taipei, Taiwan (台北市伊通街46號2樓)

TEL: 02-2506-7447

http://www.see-join.com.tw/

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Ri-Xing Letter Casting

If you are interested in Chinese Typefaces, you would definitely want to visit this small firm on Tai-Yuan Road behind Taipei Train Station. Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm (日星鑄字行) opens to the visitors on Mon, Tue, and Th. from 5:30pm to 7:30 pm after their business hours.

“Letterpress” and “Typography” have been around me for the past four years because of my design work. I visited “International Printing Museum” in Carson, California last year. By visiting Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm in Taipei this year, it has proven how complicated the Chinese characters are comparing with 26 English letters.

Walking into the Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm, the first word came to my mind was “Amazing!” This ancient Letter casting technique is still operating and producing Chinese moveable typefaces in Taiwan, while this technique has already been put into museum exhibition in the US. From there, I admired the spirit of the owner who has been keeping the shop without making any profit. He is keeping the only Letter Casting Firm in Taiwan - the last traditional Chinese character casting place within the Chinese community in the world.

The traditional Chinese characters have been around for 5,000 years. Chinese invented the first moveable typeface before western Gutenberg letterpress in 1455. Ri-Xing can be considered as a world heritage place. While we were there, a local TV station was also interviewing the owner, Mr. Chang, Chieh-Kuan.

Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm was established in 1969 by Mr. Chang’s father and himself. It was originally planned as a print shop, but the Letter Casting business started to boom before the printers arrived. Until 1986, Ri-Xing was still running a very good business with approximately 30 workers.

How to preserve this world heritage is the current goal of Mr. Chang’s before it gets turned into a museum. A “Typeface Duplicate Engraving Plan” has been made, calling all the interested volunteers to help. This plan is to scan all the current 1.68 million typefaces for a clean, clear, black and white copy for the designers to re-produce type molds or making future new design Chinese typefaces on the computer. Interested volunteers who would like to help will receive training from Mr. Chang. This is a great opportunity to get close and learn the beauty of Chinese characters throughout the entire process. Please visit http://rixingtypography.blogspot.com/

This is an automatic casting machine in Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm in Taipei. Mr. Chang did a demonstration for us. He turned on the machine and the lead melted under high temperature created by the gas. The typeface was produced one by one automatically.

The method I saw in Carson City in the US was manually making typefaces before the casting machine was invented.

All the wasted typefaces can be melted again to reproduce more typefaces.

Carefully examining each typeface after it is made is another incredibly tiring job on the eyes.

Here are the type molds to make typefaces. Type molds are stored in the matrix wooden cabinet flat drawers. This process is similar to the Western typeface storage method which is to store the capital letters at the upper compartment and the lower case letters at the bottom compartment because they are close to the person. However, the storage of English typefaces is much less complicated than that for the Chinese typefaces. If the typefaces fell off from the storage shelves, they would need to be tossed away since they are difficult to be put back in the right order, and also because a tiny bit corner might have been damaged.

Thousands of shelves are placed on the first floor and basement in Ri-Xing.

“昔字”, “惜字”, “習字” (“hsi-tzu”, “hsi-tzu”, “hsi-tzu”) is the mission for Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm. These six Chinese characters have exactly the same pronunciation, but they mean differently-“ancient typeface”, “cherishing typeface”, and “studying typeface”, respectively. This is how complicated but beautiful the Chinese characters are! This concluded our visit in Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm where we learned that we should continue to preserve, cherish, and study one of the world heritage assets.

日星鑄字行 (Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm)

Address:台北市太原路97巷13號 (Tai-Yuan Road, Lane 97, #13, Taipei, Taiwan).

Tel: (02) 2556–4626

Two photos with words on the bottom were taken in the International Printing Museum, California. All other photos in this article were taken in the Ri-Xing Letter Casting Firm, Taipei, Taiwan. Read More