a survey of puppetry in china

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A Survey of Puppetry in China (Summers 2008 and 2009) Author(s): Fan Pen Li Chen and Bradford Clark Source: Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2 (FALL 2010), pp. 333-365Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25782123Accessed: 04-02-2016 06:14 UTC

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A Survey of Puppetry in China (Summers 2008 and 2009) Fan Pen Li Chen and Bradford Clark

Over a total of thirteen weeks, the authors accompanied Professor Ye Mingsheng of Fuzhou, Fujian Province, and his graduate student Huang Jianxing on a survey of Chinese string, rod, and glove puppetry. Covering thirteen provinces and municipali ties, they documented rehearsals and performances by both large, state-supported con

temporary puppetry troupes and small, rural, traditional companies engaged in ritual

performances. Fan Pen Chen is an assistant professor at State University of New York at Albany. She

began research on the Chinese shadow theatre in 1995 and has published two books and numerous articles on the topic.

Bradford Clark is a professor and designer/director at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, teaching courses in puppetry and stage design. He serves as curator of collec tions at the Center for Puppetry Arts Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the summers of 2008 and 2009, we accompanied Professor Ye Mingsheng of Fuzhou, Fujian Province, and his graduate student

Huang Jianxing on a survey of Chinese string (kuileixi), rod (zhangtou mu'ouxi), and glove puppetry (budaixi). Professor Ye, a scholar of pop ular Chinese religions and senior researcher at the Fujian Provincial Research Institute for the Arts (Fujian Yishu Yanjiuyuan), organized the excursion, as he was in the process of researching a comprehen sive nationwide survey of Chinese religious and secular three-dimen sional puppetry (mu'ouxi). The Chinese draw a distinction between the mu'ouxi types of puppetry and the shadow theatre (yingxi), which has enjoyed a greater degree of documentation in recent years. Cov

ering thirteen provinces and municipalities (Fujian, Zhejiang, Shang hai, Jiangsu, Hunan, Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan,

Guangdong, and Hainan) over a total of thirteen weeks, we viewed

Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 27, no. 2 (Fall 2010). ? 2010 by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved.


334 Chen and Clark

(and often commissioned) rehearsals and performances by both large, state-supported contemporary puppetry troupes and small, rural, tradi tional companies that had existed in families for generations. In major cities and tiny villages, we attended public festivals and private ceremo

nial performances in family homes. We visited museums; met with per formers, puppet makers, and scholars; collected books and other mate

rials; videorecorded performances; and photographed collections of

puppets and scripts. Aside from rod, string, and glove puppet theatre

performances, we also found opportunities to observe a rarely studied form of shadow play, several local human-actor operas, and a shaman istic nuo performance.

We viewed performances and rehearsals on modern urban

stages, in open-air village venues, in ancestral clan halls, in family court

yards, on spectacular stand-alone stages, and even in a portable booth that collapsed in such an ingenious manner that the stage and the pup pets could be carried by a single performer. One excellent impromptu performance took place in a storage room. We expected richly detailed

production values from the better-funded state troupes, but even the

private companies sometimes boasted visually sophisticated designs, though usually on a smaller scale. The complexity of the stage decora

tions, including intricately carved scenic details, could be exquisite. At the same time, it was interesting to note the introduction of modern scenic technologies into traditional performances. We were especially surprised to see large ink-jet printouts of scenic renderings or pho tographs used as backdrops by some rural puppet troupes and small

regional opera companies. Since few small American theatres, puppet companies, or university theatre departments have either the technical or financial capability of using such large-scale printouts, this was an

especially interesting development. Contemporary Chinese puppetry enjoys a wealth of variety, and

we were impressed by how many different performance genres are still

quite active. Styles of puppetry vary greatly depending on their local

traditions, even within a given manipulation genre. Rod puppets alone

range from the very simple, foot-long rod figures at Guantao, Hebei

Province, to the intricately adorned, scaled human figures of the pup peteers of Sichuan. Some rod figures appear behind curtains, their

operators concealed, while in other forms both the performers and

puppets can be seen on stage simultaneously. Because local histories, folklore, and associated opera or other musical traditions often deter mine the textual and musical aspects of puppet performances, these

vary greatly as well. Performance ensembles include many different combinations of percussion, reed, string, and brass instruments?in one case, even a saxophone.


A Survey of Puppetry in China 335

Despite a declining number of performers and audience mem

bers, puppetry survives in many areas, largely because of its continuing importance within traditional religious practices. While much of the

repertoire is essentially secular in nature, puppetry provides an eco nomical manner by which the deities may be entertained after having been invited to visit for thanksgiving and vow-repayment ceremonies, or to confer blessings at celebratory events. In general, non-govern ment-sponsored puppet troupes in rural areas, particularly in the

south, tend to be much more important to local religious practices. Performances that often last all day and/or all night are commissioned

by families, despite the fact that the puppets may find themselves per forming exclusively for the gods. The importance of puppetry in such ceremonial events provides income for small private companies and allows them to survive.

Puppet troupes demonstrate different degrees of success when

coping with China's modern economy. Some state companies have found themselves in the surprising and very fortunate position of being able to exercise ownership over the land their theatres have occupied for many years. The Shanghai Puppetry Troupe, for example, has been able to successfully use their property in the middle of Shang hai's financial district for the construction of a skyscraper, subsequently obtaining income from rentals and the management of the building while maintaining performance, production, and exhibition spaces on one of the floors. The Yangzhou Puppetry Troupe of Jiangsu Province, another state company, rents a part of its building to a karaoke cafe and also derives much of its income from outside commissions, using company members' sculptural skills to produce giant foam figures for

exhibitions, advertising, parades, theme parks, statues in temples, and other installations and events. The Shaanxi Provincial Folk Art The

atre, which performs both rod puppetry and shadow plays, collaborated with the United States director Ping Chong and other American artists in the 2005 touring production of Cathay: Three Tales of China. The pup pet theatre of Beijing presently performs Western-style children's plays. The Theatre of Large Puppets of Nanchong, Sichuan, has created a

market for itself in the tourist town of Mt. Emei by performing daily, March through December, to packed audiences (Figure 1). Tourist

agencies provide busloads of spectators who are entertained not only

by the famed Large Puppets, but also by an extravagantly produced

variety show featuring the traditional dances, acrobatics, and operatic

specialties of Sichuan, including the famous quick-change faces.

However, not all government-sponsored troupes are so fortu nate. The Taishun Puppetry Troupe of Zhejiang, for example, barely survives; its members participate as volunteers. Only the director and


336 Chen and Clark

deputy director of the troupe receive a stipend from the local cultural bureau.

Making a living continues to be difficult for many traditional rural performers, who are often peasants carrying on traditions handed down within their families for generations. As their local audiences decline due to lessening interest in religious activities or the competi

Figure 1. The Theatre of Large Puppets of Nanchong, Sichuan. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



tion of television and other media, some performers are being hired to

present their local traditions in tourist venues located outside of their historical performing territories. For example, peasant puppeteers of

Heyang in Shaanxi, practicing the only surviving form of marionette the atre in northern China, perform daily at a restaurant theatre in Xi'an, next to the famed Big Goose Pagoda of the Tang dynasty (618-907). Two performers that we did not observe, husband and wife, are reput edly the single surviving glove puppet troupe in northern China. They can be found only at Wuqiao in Hebei, where they perform in a theme

park featuring traditional entertainments. A new government program recognizes certain traditional art

ists as provincial and national Inheritors of Intangible Cultural Heri

tage. This has been a major new development since Chen conducted fieldwork on Chinese shadow theatres in the late 1990s, and it has gen erated tremendous excitement. The title not only catapults a "lowly" peasant performer into prominence, but also provides him with a

guaranteed living stipend. Ranging from 400 to 800 yuan ($59-118) per month, this stipend represents a considerable sum to peasant per formers. Such provincial and national "treasures" also bring honor and additional government support to the local cultural bureaus. Reacting to the mass destruction of traditional culture during the Cultural Revo lution (1966-1976) and the rapid extinction of what has been revived since then, the Chinese government is attempting to preserve tradi tional culture through this program. These Inheritors of Intangible Cultural Heritage must be able to document that they themselves are

the recipients of multiple generations of knowledge, and they must

make a commitment to pass on their knowledge in a concrete manner

to their successors. One of the most enjoyable performances took place in the vil

lage of Tanshang, about thirty kilometers from Guantao, Hebei (Figure 2). Here a simple, secular form of rod puppetry depicted the conflicts between a daughter and her mother-in-law. As a nonreligious form of puppetry, once very popular but no longer so, this form has little

economic viability in this area; in fact, we were told that some consid ered the performance as little more than a form of begging. While the

manipulation lacked the virtuosity and artistry of many of the forms we encountered, Clark greatly enjoyed the lively, melodic nature of

the songs and accompaniment, as well as the portrayal of recognizable domestic themes. The form had been recognized as an important cul

tural property on the provincial level, and some monies were freed

up for the acquisition of musical instruments (the vertical reed instru

ments of the sheng family, not seen in other performances, were espe

cially interesting).


338 Chen and Clark

Competition for recognition in this heritage program is unavoid

ably fierce, particularly at the national level. The fact that only two art

ists may be selected to represent any single form of endangered heri

tage also intensifies the competition and has created tension among some of the performers. Some regional cultural bureaus have been known to spend large sums of money to record the works of local artists and traditions, enabling them to submit elaborate documentation for

government consideration at the provincial and national levels (there are also lower levels of recognition that do not include a financial sti

pend) . Many of our local contacts came through representatives of the local cultural bureaus; such meetings would have been very difficult to arrange through other means. Ironically, as we documented perfor

mances and collections, we ourselves were often videorecorded and

photographed, as it was hoped that a record of our interest in these traditional artists would prove invaluable when applying for state rec

ognition and stipends. Performances by government-sponsored troupes, intended to

entertain city children, differ from plays presented in rural areas for both deities and audiences of all ages. Government-sponsored compa

nies?many of whose founders included members of the best private

Figure 2. Rod puppets perform domestic scenes in Tanshang, Hebei. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



provincial or county troupes?emphasize technical skills and original creations. They aim to entertain and inculcate didactic values in young audiences. Private troupes, however, represent the richness of tradition,

mainly in operatic form, and sometimes with relatively less technical

sophistication. For many, their value lies in their ceremonial functions.

Perhaps the best-known marionette company in China is Fujian Province's Quanzhou Puppetry Troupe of Quanzhou City (Zayton in

Western sources), a state-supported troupe. Members of the Quanzhou company are often admired by other performers for their skillful manip ulation skills. They have toured extensively, and videodiscs have been

produced of their performances. As with other state troupes, their rep ertoire is secular in nature, and they are famous for performing scenes that showcase complex, highly skilled manipulation. (Many troupes in China share similar pieces in their repertoires; this apparently comes about from a common desire to emulate the success of successful

troupes and the methods in which performers are trained. However, economic competition has made troupes more aware of the intrinsic value of their intellectual property.) When we visited the Quanzhou company, young members of the troupe were rehearsing a scene from the model opera, The Red Lantern, in preparation for a national com

petition of young professional performers organized by the Shanghai Puppetry Troupe (Figure 3). Although puppetry was often used in the staging of model operas during the Cultural Revolution, we were sur

prised to see one still being rehearsed, though we would later attend an

evening of conventional model operas in Chengdu. The extensive dia

logue was quite a challenge for the performers, and we were impressed by how well it was transmitted through stylized, operatic gestures.

In Xi'an, we observed the government-sponsored Provincial Folk Art Theatre rehearse a modern rendition of Thrice Beating the White Skeleton Demon from Journey to the West, using a huge cast of beautifully crafted, cartoonlike characters. Rather than using live orchestras (such as those that almost invariably accompany private, rural performances), official troupes tend to use sophisticated prerecorded music and dia

logue. While singing is central to traditional, local operatic forms, in modern puppetry singing (which is very hard to learn) is kept to a

minimum. The tales are fast moving and use Mandarin, making them

accessible to nonlocal audiences. Chen, whose language skills allowed her to follow the narrative, found the Provincial Folk Art Theatre's

performance highly entertaining. Gauze masks protected the faces of

the puppets during rehearsal (leading us to the mistaken speculation that they were intended as a topical H1N1 reference), but were quickly taken off when we asked for permission to videotape the process.

Creative ingenuity and technical skills have always been the cen


340 Chen and Clark

tral concerns of the official troupes. Before the creation of modern,

largely didactic genres of puppetry intended for young audiences, the old masters who initially formed the government troupes worked on

perfecting their technical skills while enacting traditional plays. (In one city, we heard concerns that with modern productions no longer requiring such technique, such skills are eroding.) Qiao Guli, a son and student of some of the great masters of a bygone generation of the Shaanxi Provincial Folk Art Theatre, demonstrated for us his amazing technical virtuosity in some re-created traditional rod puppetry pieces (Figure 4). As Qiao specialized solely in puppetry manipulation, he

arranged for singers and a live orchestra of local Qin opera music to

accompany his performance. Manipulating the rods inside the sleeves

Figure 3. Members of the Quanzhou Puppetry Troupe rehearse The Red Lan tern, a model opera. (Photo: Bradford Clark)


Figure 4. Qiao Guli demonstrates traditional rod puppetry manipulation. (Photo: Bradford Clark)


342 Chen and Clark

of the puppets, Qiao Guli performed a range of characters, includ

ing a scholar, an elegant young woman, a ch'ou (clown), Sun Wukong (Monkey King), and a painted-faced general. Like their human coun

terparts, the figures demonstrated expert water sleeve movements and martial arts choreography. The clown balanced a bamboo pole on his

shoulder, goods suspended on either end. He then lifted the pole over

his head and switched it to his other shoulder. The aggressive Monkey King expertly twirled his staff, the manipulator's hand having slipped into the puppet's sleeve. As we often saw with the rod puppets, the

performer's feet moved in sync with the choreography of the puppet. We also watched traditional Qin opera rod puppet presenta

tions by rural, private troupes in Zhouzhi, Shaanxi Province, and in

Yongdeng, Gansu Province. In these, the puppeteers performed both the singing and manipulation of the puppets to the accompaniment of live orchestras. In the rural troupes, music and singing seemed to have been of more importance than the virtuosity in the manipulation of the puppets. One troupe leader noted the difficulty of learning the local songs associated with these puppet traditions; he had resorted to

letting new performers sing better-known tunes from other regions. Near Pingnan, in the mountains of central Fujian, an extraordi

nary traditional Siping marionette performance (Siping tixian mo'ouxi) took place in the small, isolated village of Xiekeng in Lingxiaxiang County (Figure 5, Plate 5). In an ancestral clan hall, two brothers, Lu Shaocan and Lu Shaokuan, one the manipulator and singer, and the other the musician and vocal chorus, performed with exquisite string figures that featured utterly unique costumes.

Unlike the embroidered ornament commonly used in puppet and opera costumes, these silk garments were printed with wooden

blocks; details were subsequently painted in. Strips of wood, soaked and

softened, woven, pressed, and painted in gold, provided flexible, orna mental details for armor, headdresses, and other costume elements.

It was a miracle that any of these exquisite figures survived the Cultural Revolution. Two sets had existed before that time; the local Red Guard cadres destroyed half of the figures (different characters) in each set. As a result, once it was safe to perform again, a complete set could be assembled from the remaining puppets.

In Shaoyang City, Hunan Province, we commissioned a solo

glove puppet performance by Liu Yongzhang, a sixteenth-generation, national-level Inheritor of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Thought extinct until 2002, this form of one-man puppetry would have disap peared completely if it were not for the efforts of Qin Baolai, a retired member of the Cultural Bureau of Shaoyang City. Qin made nine

trips to the remote village of Yanwoling in a mountain valley south of



Shaoyang and eventually tracked down Liu Yongzhang, who was work

ing as a longshoreman at the river port of Shaoyang. According to clan

records, an ancestor of the Liu family arrived at this area as a refugee from Jiangxi Province in 1663 with a one-man puppetry set. Conve nient and cheap, the art provided supplementary income for the family and eventually became a jealously guarded heirloom for the men of this clan village. The village had more than a hundred and ten pup petry "sets" during its heyday around the end of the nineteenth cen

tury. Liu Yongzhang and his brother Liu Yong'an had remnants of the two only surviving "sets" in the village when Qin Baolai located them. Lui Yongzhang is currently teaching this tradition to two students. We observed his performance of Mountain of the Blue Dragon, supposedly derived from Journey to the West, as well as a scene from Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

The design of this one-man puppetry "set" (Figure 6) is most

ingenious and may represent that used by the original glove puppetry or budaixi (literally "cloth bag drama"). The budaixi in Taiwan, Fujian, and Zhejiang all feature noncollapsible stages with no relationship to

cloth bags. We saw a one-man glove puppet show at Shanmenzhen in

Zhejiang Province by the sixty-five-year-old Ye Fuzhao in an elaborate

Figure 5. Preparing for a Siping marionette performance. (Photo: Bradford

Clark)


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Figure 6. Liu Yongzhan's collapsible stage. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



stationary stage. The entire stage, with all the musical instruments and

puppets of Liu's "set," however, can be folded into a bag and wrapped in an indigo floral "blanket" (a cloth sheet that can be stuffed with cotton in the winter) that adorns the stage and which an itinerant performer can use when traveling (Figure 7). This arrangement can then be car

ried on a shoulder pole, which is used to prop up the stage and can serve as a weapon, if necessary. The puppeteer's small bench is carried on the other end of the shoulder pole. Sitting on the bench within the

booth, Liu's feet were attached to different percussion instruments and a wooden clapper by strings. He played percussion with a foot pedal as

he performed, simultaneously manipulating puppets, singing, and pro

viding dialogues. He often used a whistle inside his mouth (a puppet device common throughout the world, similar to a British Punch and

Judy performer's swazzle). Made of two thin pieces of pork bone, the whistle could create music as well as simulate sounds of all kinds, such as those of animals, birds, wind, rain, and battles.

As many of Liu's teachers' puppets were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, he rebuilt the collection largely from memory. Clark had presumed that the charming character designs were based

upon very old models, but Liu explained that they were his own innova

tions, influenced by contemporary animation.

Figure 7. Liu Yongzhan's stage ready for travel. (Photo: Bradford Clark)


346 Chen and Clark

A most unusual form of puppetry is found in mountain areas of northern Sichuan, where a type of ancient exorcist nuo ritual named

tiyangxi survives. Considered a "living fossil" of Chinese drama, this par ticular type of nuo ritual-drama consists of three components: thirty-two tianxi (heavenly dramas), involving string puppets representing dei

ties; thirty-two dixi (earthly dramas), performed by both masked and unmasked characters; and numerous renxi (human dramas), humorous and lewd skits performed late at night by unmasked actors. We inter viewed Li Dafu, the twelfth-generation Inheritor in the region of She

jianxiang (Yuanba District, Guangyuan Prefecture, Sichuan Province), where he and other villagers used the clan hall altar and string puppets to demonstrate the arrival of the deities. Liu Xiaofen (from the cultural bureau of Yuanba) accompanied us to the cultural bureau of Shejian (under her jurisdiction), which graciously received us and dispatched

officials to take us to Longhui Village, where Li Dafu resided. These rituals are rarely performed these days, but the local cultural bureau

very kindly provided us with a videorecording of a performance. Occasionally opportunities presented themselves for conduct

ing valuable fieldwork that was not necessarily related to puppetry. In

Wangcang County of Guangyuan Prefecture, also in this mountainous

region of northern Sichuan, arrangements were made for us to observe a ritual nuo performance that featured masked actors, but not puppets. The shaman priest arranged for the performance to take place in an ancient temple at the top of a mountain. To get there entailed traveling by two different cars and a one-and-a-half-hour hike up treacherous,

barely existing mountain roads. We returned at midnight in pitch dark

ness, aided by one large flashlight for each group of five or six people. The physical challenges notwithstanding (Chen twisted her knee and

ankle, and Professor Ye would have tumbled down the mountain twice if a strong young man had not kept a constant hold on his backpack), the performance turned out to have been one of highlights of the trip. Professor Ye later conjectured that our host may have desired that we be kept some distance from populated areas, as we were to witness and document rituals (such as the exorcism of evil spirits) that nor

mally should only have been performed for religious purposes. The

priest may very well have felt that our isolation could help to minimize

damage to his professional reputation should negative repercussions result (the unnecessary invocation of gods and spirits being potentially dangerous).

The performance involved liturgical chanting, rituals that both invited and bid farewell to deities, and skits by masked actors accom

panied by an orchestra. In addition, the priest directed several stunts

(Figure 8). With the aid of prayers, "holy water," and the blood from a


Figure 8. Making offerings during a nwo ritual performance. (Photo: Brad ford Clark)


348 Chen and Clark

red rooster (the priest bit its comb and used the resulting blood to con

secrate paper, which was subsequently burned), acolytes walked over a

bridge of twelve sharp knife blades, immersed their hands in a wok of

boiling oil, tread over a bed of burning coals, and glided the bottoms of their feet over a red hot iron plow. The priest claimed that the "secret" resided in his sprinkling of "holy water," which he consecrated through ritual.

Ultimately, however, many of the most exciting events were

shows performed with their requisite religious rituals and participants for the benefit of locals, rather than those performed solely for us.

Chinese puppet theatres, probably owing to their antiquity, have always been considered more sacred than human theatres. Whenever a pup pet troupe and a human opera troupe perform for the same event, the human theatrical troupe has to defer to the former and refrain from starting until the puppet performance has begun. Some tradi tions consider puppets so sacred that women are forbidden to touch them. Yang Li, daughter of a shadow figure carver and manager of a

publicity company located in Lanzhou for the city of Qingyang, Gansu

Province, performed shadow plays herself, but carefully refrained from

touching the trunk of the puppets she arranged for us to see and pho tograph. A small theatre was housed within the company store that fea tured specialties of Qingyang. Like the puppeteers of Xiaoyi, Shanxi, those in Qingyang performed puppet plays during the daytime and shadow plays at night. The government-sponsored publicity company

would hire different local troupes from around Qingyang to perform in Lanzhou, the capital city of the province. Although at this "publicity" theatre the traditionally performed religious playlets and rituals were absent (including the spreading of red cloth on the puppet trunks; the

killing of a goat and offering of a bowl of the cooked meat to the wor

shipped god; the burning of candles, incense, and mock money; and the setting off of firecrackers), religious beliefs persisted. The young college graduate and manager told us of an evening when a young woman unknowingly sat on a shadow puppet trunk. That night the

light bulb flickered and burnt out so many times that the performance could not continue. Finally, the performer burned mock money and

prayed to the patron god of their theatre. The light bulb flickered once and then all was fine for the rest of the evening.

Religion was so condemned by communism before the 1980s that some rituals can no longer be performed. At Yanlingtou Village of

Pucheng City, Fujian, we interviewed Jiang Anmin, a 101-year-old (by Chinese reckoning where one begins life as one year old) marionette

performer who described a closing ritual, but this Inheritor of Intan

gible Cultural Heritage was unable to perform when we requested it.



Traditionally, at the end of the Zhuanzixi puppet shows of Pucheng, the main puppeteer, a puppet in hand, would exorcize evil spirits by stomping fiercely to the accompaniment of gong and drum beats. After

kicking a small stool and the curtain from the stage area out of his way, he would then throw the puppet away, sending it flying off across the

stage to punctuate the end of the exorcistic ritual. Other rituals managed to survive. The most religiously oriented

puppet shows we observed were performed in remote regions in south ern China. Near the city of Putian, Fujian Province, we attended two

days of a three-day ritual intended to ensure the welfare of and bless

ings from the ancestors of Huang Yuanxin and thirty-eight members of his clan. The complex three-day event, held for the first time since the days of Huang's great-grandfather, took a year to prepare and cost

70,000-80,000 yuan (more than $10,000). The rituals were conducted

by priests of Sanyijiao (Three-in-One Religion), a local religious sect that combines elements of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Elaborate offerings (including roomsful of palanquins, servants, and

fancy modern houses, all made of paper) were burned to appease the ancestors. Extensive rituals atoned for the ancestors' sins, helping them to attain salvation and, consequently, to find themselves in a bet ter position to assist their surviving descendants.

The rituals performed by the Sanyijiao priests alternated with

performances by a string puppet troupe that served equally ritualis tic functions. Unlike most operatic performances (all traditional dra

mas, including the puppet theatres, are operatic in nature), which are secular in content but performed to entertain the deities, the puppets themselves represented specific deities and told their stories. The com

pany of Chen Deyao, seventh-generation performer, spent the first day performing the story of Mulian, the filial, pious monk who travels into the underworld in order to save his sinful mother from the fires of hell

(Plate 6). At the point of the performance when Mulian reaches hell to save his mother, members of the sponsoring family knelt before the

stage and beseeched atonement for the sins of their own ancestors as

well. The popular tale with associated ritual serves as an inspirational tale of filial loyalty.

Chen Deyao's small group of string puppeteers, traveling by motorcycle, returned the next day to perform an episode from the god dess Chen Jinggu cycle, Beidouxi, in which this deity helps an empress give birth and ensures the health of the imperial heir. This play pro vided the context for performing a ritual that helps children "pass the

guan" or proceed through difficult junctures of life. This ritual is typi cally presented after the conclusion of the marionette play and provides extra income for the puppeteers. To the disappointment of the troupe,


350 Chen and Clark

however, only one rather weak-looking child, alternately carried by his mother and grandmother, participated in this post-performance cer

emony. The puppet-goddess recited the name of the child, and one of his T-shirts was ritually paraded over the stage's Hundred Flower

Bridge (represented by a bridge-shaped piece of paper with Chinese

characters). The child then joined the ceremony on stage, carried by his grandmother. A live rooster also appeared on stage as part of the

proceedings. We observed two days of this three-day event, during which

the troupe performed throughout the daylight hours. Other than a few curious children, we were the only ones who watched the mari onette plays, as most of the family members focused their attention

upon the priests. This was understandable, as the highly theatrical (and

frequently humorous) priests not only chanted and danced, but also directed the family through their roles in the ceremonies. At times the

priests ran and leaped in a figure-eight pattern, with some carrying large paper sculptures of warriors on their steeds (Figure 9). Represent ing messengers, these figures would later be burned and dispatched to the spirit world.

Indeed, the close association between puppetry (the marionette

troupes of rural Fujian in particular) and ritual is particularly remark

Figure 9. Messengers to the spirit world. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



able in southern China. Because of local religious needs, Chen Deyao's troupes present more than five hundred shows a year. He, his wife, and other members of his troupes often perform at different venues dur

ing the same day. Not only are performances sponsored for the usual

purpose of delighting the deities, but, in more remote regions, we also found "ritual specialist" puppeteers, who wielded supernatural powers

through enactments of the tales of specific deities. Some puppeteers, like Chen Deyao, use puppet performances to help the deceased gain salvation and weak children thrive; others have been known to bring rain, while some are even ordained priests who combine shamanistic rituals with puppet performances.

In the village of Xiahouyang, in Taishun County of southern

Zhejiang Province, we watched Xu Maobao perform Subduing the South Snake (Shou nanshe), another episode from the life cycle of the goddess Chen Jinggu. The shaman-puppet performer had originally planned to present a play about Li Bo, the Tang poet, for us. But when Profes sor Ye instead requested an episode from the mythical tales of Chen

Jinggu, the shaman acquiesced. Before performing this play, the pup peteer ritually cleansed himself by washing his face and hands. A table

representing an altar was set in front of the stage. As soon as the god dess Chen Jinggu entered (Figure 10), the candles and incense on the altar were lit and wine poured. This play is so traditional and religious that although women are now allowed to perform marionette shows,

they are prohibited from participating in the performance of Chen

Jinggu tales. Xu's daughter also told Chen that her father was known to have been particularly efficacious when using this play to request for

rain?droughts often ended whenever he performed the episode in

which Chen Jinggu requests rain. The Chen Jinggu cycle is one of six religious plays known as the

Six Caves (liudong) performed traditionally by shaman priests in north ern Fujian and southern Zhejiang. We watched another play?about a god transformed from a snake?from this series of mythical tales in

the mountain village of Huangjingshan in Qingshui District, Fujian. Creation of the Immortals (Duxianji) was performed the home of fourth

generation string puppet performer and priest Wang Hua. His second

son, Wang Maoyuan, owns a store in a town nearby that sells religious accoutrements and, like his father, also provides services as a shamanic

priest and string puppeteer. Wang Maoyuan served as the main pup

peteer. He not only conducted the associated rituals that (according to an almanac) had to begin at 5:00 am for that particular day, but also

cooked elaborate meals with the women of the household, feeding us, his family, the official sponsor of the show, and the troupe of six, most

of whom were musicians and relatives.


Figure 10. The goddess Chen Jinggu. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



The official sponsor commissioned the performance as repay ment for a vow that he had made to the gods during the 1980s (we provided additional financial support). The sponsor's village home in the mountains had been in danger of being destroyed by a mudslide.

Although the entire village has since been relocated to a town in a different county, this man felt obligated to repay his vow, which had saved his home more than twenty years before. Traditionally, the rituals and the performance should have been done at the home of the spon sor. But, in this case, the priest-puppeteer Wang Hua agreed to have

everything performed at his own home without the participation and assistance of the sponsor's sons and daughters-in-law, who were busy working. The sponsor came alone and lived at the Wangs', along with some of the performers. Wang Hua killed two birds with one stone by selecting to perform for two days around the birthday of Marshall Tian, the patron god who is widely worshiped by practitioners of theatres in

Fujian and Taiwan, and who has special significance as a protector for

many villages and city quarters in the Quanzhou region. Wang Hua would have performed for this patron god of string puppetry regard less, and preparations for the rituals began the night before. Robin

Ruizendaal, in Marionette Theatre in Quanzhou, discusses the importance of Marshal Tian and observes that in his puppet manifestation, Tian's ritualistic roles (the communication of wishes to the gods, requests for

boons, and protective exorcistic functions) are equivalent to those of a

Daoist priest. Temples are dedicated to him, and his ritual effectiveness is such that his presence is often invoked before beginning a religious event (Ruizendaal 2006: 182-183).

The choice of the play to be performed for the occasion was

ultimately decided by the god himself. Two horn-shaped tallies, flat on one side and known as gaobei, were tossed upon the floor whenever the wishes of deities were consulted. The combination of one tally with the flat side up and one with the flat side down indicated agreement

by the deity. Creation of the Immortals, the Snake King tale, involved so

many rituals that Wang Hua had previously been reluctant to perform it. Marshall Tian apparently understood the associated difficulties. Pro fessor Ye had visited Wang Hua twice during Marshall Tian's birthday celebration in the past, and both years Marshall Tian opted for the per formance of Beidouxi, the previously mentioned episode from the Chen

Jinggu cycle. This year, however, after much prompting on the part of Professor Ye, Wang Hua again consulted with the god concerning the performance of Creation of the Immortals, and Marshall Tian finally consented. When we arrived at Wang Hua's home the day before the

performance, he told us that he had almost canceled the play's per


354 Chen and Clark

formance. Fortunately, he was unable to reach Professor Ye and felt a

responsibility to carry out his promise. Creation of the Immortals (Figure 11) is the story of the Jiaomang,

the Snake King or Snake God (shewang, which means king and deity; depending upon one's perspective, he is also referred to as a demon). Unlike other snakes, however, Jiaomang keeps a vegetarian diet, eating dead banana leaves rather than the flesh of animals and humans. As a

result, the Goddess Guanyin transforms him into a handsome young man. He marries a human girl, and members of his family all eventually become immortals. Chen considers this tale to be a mythification of the conversion of the indigenous Snake People of Fujian (the Yue People, who worshipped snakes and considered them to be their ancestors) to the mainstream civilization and their intermarriage with the Han Chi nese. After his transformation, the Snake King discovers that Guanyin has forgotten to give him the ability to hear. This may be a reference to both the earless nature of snakes and the Snake King's inability to understand the language of the dominant civilization. The perfor mance's sponsor periodically throughout the day poured gunpowder into a steel pipe, then fired the extraordinarily loud vertical cannon.

These deafening blasts were presumably the only sounds audible to the Snake God, announcing to him the celebration of his story.

Starting before dawn, the priest and performers went out to a

nearby hillside to seek out a wild banana tree. Using a portable altar

Figure 11. The Snake King (on throne) in The Creation of the Immortals. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



established nearby, the priest ritually invited the Snake God to inhabit the tree through a ceremony that lasted more than half an hour. As the sun rose, the Snake God, represented by the banana tree, was taken back to Wang Huang's home and placed against a wall in full view of the stage. He/it was to stay there until the end of the show, a day later, and be sent back with due ceremony. Offerings of food, wine, candles and incense to Marshall Tian and the Snake God were placed on a

table in front the stage. Aside from setting off the cannon, the sponsor was responsible for stoking a brazier with cakes made of tea seeds from which oil had been extracted, keeping the smoke alive throughout the

performance of Creation of the Immortals. The sponsor also lit candles and incense, burned mock money, and set off firecrackers to help cel ebrate events taking place on stage, such as the Snake King's marriage and the birth of his sons.

We saw one day of the two-day performance, which was attended

only by the sponsor, Wang Hua's family, and ourselves. The day's per formance concluded at around 9 pm?precisely where the story ended for the day appeared to be of no great concern, as all knew that the

performance would pick up again in the morning. During a break, we heard the sounds of a local opera perform

ing farther up the mountain. We followed the sound up a path, discov ered a small stage facing a temple, and stayed to observe some of the

performance, which took place as part of a temple celebration. Local

opera companies are better paid than puppet companies because of their size and the expense of their costumes and accoutrements. Their

performances can provide a source of income for farmers in the off season. We were also fortunate to attend several other local opera per formances in various locations, including one by a professional troupe at a village we happened to pass by in Putian, and another that took

place at one end of a wooden covered bridge (Figure 12). The two

troupes that we observed in the remote region in western Fujian were

amateur troupes performing for two or three days in celebration of the

birthdays of deities. The sponsors provided meals to the performers, and at one of the locations we were invited to join them.

Costumes and scenic elements (including the previously men

tioned inkjet printouts used as full-stage backdrops) could be quite

impressive. On one end of the covered bridge (the other end of the

bridge housed a shrine), vertical electronic displays flanked the stage,

presenting the lyrics sung by the opera singers. These songs tended to

be more difficult to understand than the dialogue, even for the locals.

While many performers that we observed were young adults, audiences

almost always consisted of either the very old or the very young?the middle generation was presumed to be at work.


Figure 12. Opera company performing on a covered bridge. (Photo- Brad ford Clark)



While shadow puppetry was beyond the scope of our research, a serendipitous encounter with a family in Nanyue, Hunan Province, led to us commissioning a household purification by a local shadow

troupe. The family invited us to dinner and arranged for the perfor mance at their home to take place within hours. Performed by Wang Donglin, Wang Yueqiu, and Wang Xinmin, the event attracted many

neighbors and allowed us to observe a rare, authentic example of a

performance intended for the exorcism of evil influences (Figure 13). Since antiquity, southerners have been known for their worship of

ghosts and deities (both being spirits whose nomenclature depends on

one's point of view). People in this remote region of Hunan like to have their homes "cleansed" every so often. Chen, who had previously con

ducted extensive field research on shadow theatre traditions, was aware

of its close connection with religion. But this was the first time she had observed the numerous rituals (including the setting off of firecrackers and burning of candles, mock money and incense) and the chanting of spells associated with the welcoming and exorcism of spirits before and after the performances. Interestingly enough, the main puppeteer was very hesitant to discuss the clearly exorcistic aspects of the perfor mance, although a ritual object (a two-hundred-year-old wooden ling chi [literally, "a ruler used for giving orders," a ritual object used in

exorcism] was struck loudly in order to banish ghosts from the home.

Figure 13. Shadow performance including exorcist rituals. (Photo: Bradford

Clark)


358 Chen and Clark

At the end of our 2008 survey, we traveled to the small village of Shuizhuyang, within the township of Baisha in Shanghang, Fujian, to attend a festival commemorating the birthday of Marshall Tian, the

patron god of the marionette theatre in Fujian. This village claims to be the originating location for puppetry in western Fujian and houses the only shrine in the region dedicated solely to Marshall Tian. The

evening before the birthday, the event began with a string puppet per formance (Figure 14) and continued the next day at daybreak with ritual chicken and duck sacrifices (the meat to be consumed during lunch and dinner that day), bowing, chanting, candle lighting, incense

offering, and the burning of mock money. Throughout the day and into the night, four string puppet companies from neighboring villages presented plays sequentially.

Unlike many of the performances that we had previously wit

nessed, these were well attended by enthusiastic audiences. Students of traditional string puppetry were bused in during the day, and local students performed, having trained with one of the master puppeteers. In two days of remarkable events, we found the enthusiasm and skill exhibited by the students to be especially moving.

Figure 14. Performance in honor of Marshall Tian. (Photo: Bradford Clark)



The festival concluded with a remarkable display of fireworks

puppetry (yaofa muou). This form was mentioned in Song dynasty (960-1280) sources, but it was presumed extinct until recent years. The

villagers erected a tower, and as fireworks ignited and worked their way up its length, puppets dropped and spun. Sparks spewed from differ ent parts of the figures, including a fish's mouth and the body of a

urinating monkey. We were especially fortunate to see this event. Such

spectacles have become extremely rare even in this region, where they have survived; this performance almost did not happen due to a coun

trywide prohibition against the sale of gunpowder during the time of the 2008 Olympics (which began soon after our first summer's field

work concluded). A specialist from an even more remote region who had access to the materials needed for making the fireworks was hired to direct the villagers in the staging of this grand finale. While the mar

ionette performances were provided by the troupes gratuitously, the local government spent 10,000 yuan ($1,450) on this particular fire

works show. More than a thousand spectators from neighboring vil

lages gathered for this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. The local government is planning to build a cultural center in

the village, with hopes that young performers will train there, as they do during extracurricular activity in some of the schools. The day after the conclusion of the festival, we participated in a conference, with scholars and local officials giving presentations related to traditional

performance and its preservation and place in the contemporary world. Toward the end of our trip in 2009, Professor Ye returned home

Figure 15. Young puppet performers in Shuizhuyang Village. (Photo: Brad ford Clark)


360 Chen and Clark

to Fuzhou, and we went on to Guangdong Province in the south. We were guided by Ma Xingzhi, a retired member of the Guangdong Pup petry Troupe. A renowned figure in the puppetry world of Guangdong and Hainan, Ma Xingzhi and his daughter Ma Junru graciously planned our itinerary, made the arrangements, and drove us from Guangzhou through western Guangdong, down to Lin'gao County on the island

province of Hainan. When a county museum that featured the history and forms of rod puppet theatres in western Guangdong was closed the

day we visited, Mr. Ma made a phone call and the deputy director of the

museum, Ye Caiping, opened the gate for us and gave us a private tour. The puppetry traditions of Zhanjiang City in western Guang

dong Province and those of Lin'gao County may be much more closely related than hitherto recognized, although the latter distinguishes itself as a form in which both the rod puppets and puppeteers appear on stage (ren'ou tongtai) without the use of a curtain to conceal the

manipulators. In fact, many rod puppet traditions such as the Large Puppets of Sichuan (mentioned above) and those we saw in Shaanxi and Gansu feature both the puppets and the puppeteers fully visible on stage. When asked about the use of a curtain in what appeared to be a conventional rod-puppet booth, Li Huazhong, the director of the troupe that performed for us at Longtang Village in Zhanjiang, explained that he decided to use the curtain only for our benefit (as this was thought to be a more elegant manner of presentation) and that usually the audience preferred that they perform without it.

Both the Zhanjiang City and the Lin'gao traditions worship the god Huaguang as their patron deity, as does the Cantonese opera.

More significantly, and for whatever reason, in both locations only an odd number of performances or days (from 3 to 11) are used for any single event.

A brief visit with Chen Kangqing, a rod puppet carver in the

village of Yunxia, Guandong, who both restores and carves puppets for local troupes, helped us appreciate the artistry and craftsmanship behind the figures. Torsos were either carved from wood or woven from

cane, like a basket, which results in a much lighter figure (Figure 16). We were especially impressed by the simple, elegant head mechanisms that could move the eyes in the directions required.

While in Guangzhou, we chanced upon a Hainan restaurant, where we had lunch and chatted with the cook-proprietor about rod

puppet theatres in Lin'gao, whence he came. The art form was so pop ular in Lin'gao County that he was convinced that a troupe would be

performing no matter when we went. "Just contact the cultural bureau," he said; "All the troupes have to be registered, and they have to report all their performances to the local government." Surely enough, the


Figure 16. Puppet from the workshop of Chen Kangqing. (Photo: Brad ford Clark)


362 Chen and Clark

day we arrived at Lin'gao, Minister Lin of Public Relations personally drove us to a nearby village where a troupe was to perform for the fourth night of a five-performance celebration. In this case, the first three nights had presented Lin opera, performed by actors, and the last two nights were to be celebrated with the less expensive rod puppet theatre.

The director of the troupe, however, decided to cancel the per formance that day, due to the forecasted arrival of a typhoon. Since the

typhoon ended up not arriving after all, we went in any case, hoping that the performance might still take place. The villagers apparently had the same idea. The open space in front of the permanent stage was almost completely filled with villagers who brought their own fold

ing chairs and stools. Behind the audience, under a canopy and facing the stage, sat statues of the village clan ancestors and their attendants. The village shrine in which the ancestor-deities normally resided was

situated to one side of the open space. All the puppets (seventeen in

all) were within the dark shrine. To our surprise, Wang Leiguo, the director of the troupe, was a woman, and she and four other female members of the troupe slept in the shrine, as was traditional (Chen had

previously read about this custom, but did not expect to see it). Wang Leiguo graciously obliged our request to perform a couple of excerpts, but was unable to put on an entire performance since (aside from two

musicians) the male performers, having previously been notified of the cancelation of the performance, stayed home for the day (Figure 17).

The female puppeteers wore beautiful red traditional perfor mance costumes. What surprised us the most, however, was the impro visational nature of the tradition. According to the director, she learned the tunes from her master and then made up new lyrics for her plays; most were likely based on familiar formulaic patterns. She could conceivably weave our visit into a new play. Although all her plays were based on traditional tales she had heard, her audiences required that she create new (albeit traditional-style) plays each year. She would create them and teach them to the members of her troupe, who are

presumably all masters of improvisation and coordination as Chinese dramatic troupes once were before the various traditions became set and stylized.

Situated across from Vietnam, the residents of Lin'gao speak a dialect very different from the Minnan dialect spoken throughout the other parts of Hainan. This major difference in their dialect, which renders the older generation incapable of comprehending entertain

ment on local television, may account for the immense popularity of the local Lin opera and rod puppetry among the residents of Lin'gao.

Aside from the government troupe that now performs mostly Lin


Figure 17. Improvised rod puppet performance in Lin'gao. (Photo: Bradford

Clark)


364 Chen and Clark

opera, Lin'gao County is served by six puppetry troupes of at least six teen members each and four Lin opera troupes.

Conclusion

Professor Ye, who spent years gaining the respect and trust of his contacts, has developed a very respectful and methodical protocol when carrying out his research, and the rest of us were careful to follow his lead. It should be noted that we were always welcomed graciously to these performances and ceremonies, and our hosts often expressed their honor in having visitors from far away attend, with Clark often

being the first (non-ethnically Chinese) foreigner to ever set foot in some places, including a remote village among the deep mountains of central Fujian. We greatly benefited from the recent opening of many cities and villages that had been previously closed to foreigners, as well as developments in China's transportation infrastructure that greatly increased the efficiency of our travel schedule.

We had to miss only two performances?a rod puppet show in western Hunan depicting the life of Guanyin and a rod puppet and shadow theatre performance in Xiaoyi City, Shanxi Province. The for

mer was performed in a village in a militarily sensitive zone that barred the entry of foreigners. Professor Ye and his graduate student meticu

lously documented the performance for us. The latter performance was canceled because members of a local cultural bureau, alarmed

by the growing H1N1 flu epidemic of 2009, feared foreigners such as ourselves might be dangers to public health. However, such incidences were very rare. Many of those we met had not had previous contact with

foreigners, yet were extremely open and welcoming. Local scholars

generously shared their time, books, and other research materials (as much scholarship is locally published and distributed, this was invalu

able), and performers almost always gave full permission to film, pho tograph, and peek backstage during performances. Our hosts often invited us to meals. Such personal kindnesses were the most memo rable aspects of the entire experience.

It is our understanding that this was the first time such a compre hensive survey of Chinese three-dimensional puppetry has ever been undertaken. While we were able to document a wide variety of forms

(all of which deserve much more extensive documentation, especially in English), others remain to be examined. These include the wire rod puppet theatres of Fujian and Guangdong, and the very rare rod

puppet performances of the Qiang ethnic minorities in the mountain

range bordering Shaanxi and Sichuan, figures of which we found in an open-air market in the city of Xi'an. In the future, we hope that a researcher in Lanzhou, Gansu, may lead us on an expedition into the



mountains of some Qiang tribes. The ethnic minorities of China pos sess their own rich performance traditions, for the most part distinct from those we were able to document; they certainly deserve their own

surveys. In the end, we felt utterly overwhelmed by the richness of the traditions we experienced, as well as the kindness of their practitioners;

we remain very excited by the potential for further fieldwork.

REFERENCE

Ruizendaal, Robin. 2006. Marionette Theatre in Quanzhou. Leiden: Brill. 182-183.


Article Contentsp. [333]p. 334p. 335p. 336p. 337p. 338p. 339p. 340p. [341]p. 342p. 343p. [344]p. 345p. 346p. [347]p. 348p. 349p. 350p. 351p. [352]p. 353p. 354p. 355p. [356]p. 357p. 358p. 359p. 360p. [361]p. 362p. [363]p. 364p. 365

Issue Table of ContentsAsian Theatre Journal, Vol. 27, No. 2 (FALL 2010) pp. i-iv, 203-402Front MatterFROM THE EDITOR [pp. iii-iv]PLAY"Dorei" (Slave): A Play by Tamura Toshiko [pp. 203-245]

Performing Indigeneity in the Cordillera: Dance, Community, and Power in the Highlands of Luzon [pp. 246-268]Music from a Dying Nation: Taiwanese Opera in China and Taiwan during World War II [pp. 269-285]Comedy of Exotic Conflicts: Chinese Character Plays of "Kygen" [pp. 286-306]REPORTSPerforming the Nation Onstage: An Afterthought on the University of the Philippines Sarsuwela Festival 2009 [pp. 307-332]A Survey of Puppetry in China (Summers 2008 and 2009) [pp. 333-365]

Performance ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 366-369]

Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 370-373]Review: untitled [pp. 373-377]Review: untitled [pp. 377-380]Review: untitled [pp. 381-383]Review: untitled [pp. 383-386]Review: untitled [pp. 386-390]Review: untitled [pp. 390-393]

Exhibition ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 394-399]

Media ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 400-402]

Back Matter

a survey of puppetry in china

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