12/20/2023 0 Comments Chinese puppetryAccording to veteran puppeteers in Singapore, the Hokkien string puppet can have up to 19 strings, depending on the needs and type of performance.Ī Teochew iron-stick puppet performance by Lao Sai Bao Feng (disbanded) at Chee Chung Huay temple on 7 February 2011. Its southern counterpart, the Hokkien string puppet, ranges from 60 to 90 cm in height, and has an average of 12 strings. Additional strings can be added to create more intricate and complex movements. The puppeteer, whilst in a standing position, manipulates the puppet using the 12 strings attached to it. The height of the Henghua string puppet varies between 80 cm and 1 m. Each puppet comprises a centralised rod connected to the head and two thinner rods at the base for the puppeteer to manipulate. A Hainanese rod puppet measures between 60 and 70 cm and weighs approximately 2 to 3 kg. The art of manipulating a puppet takes years to master but I will briefly explain how the different types of puppets are controlled. I also picked up some basic Henghua during my 10-week stay in Putian, China, in 2013. 2Īppreciating Chinese puppet theatre was also a challenge for me but I was fortunate enough to have learnt Teochew and Hokkien from my parents and grandparents. Due to the success of the Speak Mandarin Campaign launched by the government in 1979, the majority of young Chinese people schooled in modern Singapore have become unfamiliar with dialects, which critics say has brought along with it an erosion of indigenous Chinese cultures and traditions. The opera performances are staged in regional languages (or dialects), which unfortunately make it difficult for the average Singaporean youth to understand and appreciate. Photo by Jace Tan, National Heritage Board Puppetry Documentation Project 2015/2016. The rods are partially obscured from view by the puppet’s costume. Hainanese rod puppet troupe San Chun Long’s performance at the Yan Kit Village Chinese Temple in November 2015. The rest of my research material was collected through painstaking fieldwork and personal interviews with puppeteers since then. Its Oral History Centre had interviewed a number of puppet masters from the different regional (or dialect) groups in the 1980s. There was very little material to go by but thankfully, I was able to embark on my initial study by using oral history interviews from the National Archives of Singapore. The cloth puppets left an indelible impression on me and I began to search for information on Chinese puppetry. My maternal grandmother, who hailed from Swatow (now Shantou), a city in the Chinese province of Guangdong, was an avid fan of Teochew opera and often regaled her grandchildren with stories from the operas she used to watch as a young girl. Since young, I have been exposed to Chaozhou, or Teochew opera (Chaoju, 潮剧), as performances were often staged in the Jalan Besar neighbourhood where I grew up. When the bus stopped at the traffic junction, I realised that the bundles were actually miniature puppets garbed in traditional Chinese opera costumes. While travelling on a bus in Tampines one day, I spied through the window a small makeshift stage with what looked like moving bundles of colourful cloth. I have always been interested in the forgotten and unknown, and thus my exploration of Chinese puppetry in Singapore began in 2007 – the same year I first encountered these puppets. Such a scene would have been unthinkable half a century ago when Chinese puppet theatre in Singapore was a popular form of street entertainment for children and the working class. Unfortunately, the response to this unusual street-side performance at a temple in the heartlands of Singapore is met with either furrowed eyebrows or blank looks, or young people hurrying past an unwelcome obstruction, their eyes averted or glued to their mobile phones. Tossing a puppet into the air to perform a somersault, the puppeteer sings at the top of his melodious voice, accompanied by the high-pitched clapping of cymbals and the resounding striking of drums backstage. A Hokkien glove puppet performance by Shuang Neng Feng troupe at Jiu Xuan Temple on 30 March 2010.
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