Introduction (Draft 2)

An Immortal Traditional Art in Taiwan - Glove Puppetry

Ferby Chen

Draft 2
Introduction:
Culture refers to the meanings and behaviors that groups of people develop and share over time. It is a way of being in the world; also, it symbolizes expression, sharing, transmitting, and adaptation. Certainly, each nation holds its own culture that is a system carries tradition. In addition, culture stands for high development in arts, folk arts especially. There are many folk arts in Taiwan, such as woodblock printing, shadow puppets, and glove puppets. In particular, glove puppetry is the most important for Taiwanese. "Tell a thousand ancient stories from a single mouth, and create a million troops with ten fingers" (GIO, 2004), this sentence performs Taiwanese glove puppetry. The glove puppetry is a kind of traditional opera. In Taiwan, it has been lasting for a long time since the middle of 19th century. It was brought to Taiwan by immigrants who came from southern China's Fujian Province - Chuanchow and Changchou (Yuhluh W., 1995). At first, it followed the original style of performance from mainland China. Then through experiencing many reformations and challenges, Taiwanese puppetry changes from fetter to grow up (Jenqjy Ch., 1991). However, it is struggling to survive nowadays. This is because the products of science and technology are more and more popular and getting attention in this modern society of Taiwan. Will this cultural product be ignored? What kinds of conditions are going to be need if the art of puppetry will keep going for ten years in Taiwan? This research aims to work for preserving Taiwanese glove puppetry in the future although it has owned its status. As a result, puppetry's continuation needs many people's efforts. Gradually, puppeteers create new style for puppetry. For example, they improve the music, scene, and puppets' costumes to make it animated and various. Moreover, our government realizes that conserve this traditional art is important. They start to hold many activities to promote in order to treasure this national cultural valuable. Additionally, I plan to pick a questionnaire study to do my research. I will choose respondents who are in different ages to take part in my survey, for they will have varied point of view about glove puppetry in Taiwan. Also, my questionnaire will be carried out in different places where are in the cities and country. I think glove puppetry will be hard to delete in many Taiwanese's mind forever; moreover, it will keep going for the next ten years in Taiwan because of all puppeteers' insistence, government's promotion, and new changes in puppetry.