If you Google on the company’s name you can see YouTube videos of the family performing in Vancouver in 2016. Mr. Hsue used to work in a fish-market to supplement his income from performances, mainly given at temples, but now the couple, who have three children, are full-time puppeteers and have travelled overseas. The Chin Fei Fang Marionettes performing at the puppetry carnival in Yilan. (Photo courtesy of Richard Bradshaw) The company was started by Mr. Hsue’s grandfather in 1920 and uses the style of marionette found in Quanzhou with the “paddle”-style of control. One figure Mr. Hsue demonstrated was able to lift a trunk with its hands by first closing them to grip the handles.
Taiwan puppetry professional#
Taiwan’s only professional marionettes are the traditional string-puppets of the Kaohsiung-based Chin Fei Fang Marionettes of Hsue, Ying-yuan and his wife. In what follows I cannot always be confident of accuracy and sometimes give two different romanised forms of a name. A difficulty for foreigners is the use of different systems of romanisation, even though Han Pinyin is now official. and Mandarin became the official language of Taiwan although in the south Taiwanese is preferred. In 1949 the Nationalist leaders and supporters fled to Taiwan which remains as the R.O.C. The indigenous people of Taiwan are ethnically similar to Filipinos, but they are greatly outnumbered by Chinese from the mainland. Chinese settlers originally came from the closest mainland province of Fujian and brought with them the Fujian Hokkien dialect which became the language now called Taiwanese, spoken by about 70%. They also brought their traditional forms of puppetry.įrom 1895 to 1945 Taiwan was ruled by Japan, but at the end of WW2 it was incorporated into the Republic of China. The account of puppetry that follows should be regarded as an outsider’s impression only.
It was our fourth time in Taiwan, a country with a dynamic economy and friendly, industrious people. The event included a tour to meet leaders in the field, a week-end Puppet Carnival and an International Forum, and was organised by The Puppet and Its Double with Artistic Director Cheng, Chia-yin, known to us as Jo Cheng. In December 2016 I had the good fortune to be a guest at the 2016 Asia Pacific Traditional Arts Festival which this time concentrated on puppetry. This article is reproduced with his kind permission. The text was written in early 2017 following his time in Taiwan in December 2016 as a guest to the 2016 Asia Pacific Traditional Arts Festival. He has performed with his shadow puppets for audiences of children and adults in Europe, North America and Asia, making some 50 overseas tours. Huang, who said their initial listings had sold out seconds after launching on VeVe, is now working on transforming up to 50 other puppet characters into NFTs, potentially adding another million-dollar revenue stream for the studio.Richard Bradshaw has been a full-time puppeteer since 1969. "Westerners actually really like our martial arts heroes and kung-fu," said VeVe's brand manager Raymond Chou. Marketing technology company VeVe, which is in charge of selling the NFTs, said the stories of the puppet heroes resonates with a younger crowd and could draw in foreign fans of super hero films, such as those based on characters from Marvel Comics. The company declined to reveal the profit-sharing with the market platform, but said prices for each set started at $40, translating to generated revenue of at least $1.2 million, since their listing in early February.
Pili said four of their puppet characters were made into digital versions and 30,000 sets have been sold as NFTs. The puppets are painstakingly created, and expertly manoeuvred during the filming of the shows, with costumes that are sewn on and strands of hair meticulously put in place.
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