Where can I go in a raining day? The answer is Shadow Puppet museum (皮影博物館). This is the only shadow puppet museum in Taiwan.
Shadow Puppetry (皮影戲) is also called shadow play - got its start thousands of years ago in China and India. This unique form of storytelling is the oldest type of puppetry in the world. Shadow Puppetry is popular in China, India, Indonesia and Turkey.
The puppeteer can make figures appear to walk, talk, fight, and dance.
The puppets are made from 1st layer of buffalo hide and mounted on bamboo sticks. When the puppets are held up behind a piece of white cloth, with an electric bulb or an oil lamp as the light source, shadows are cast on the screen. (Note: The 2nd layer of buffalo skin is the material to make drums.)
Glove Puppetry (布袋戲) is a type of opera using cloth puppets that originated during the seventeenth century in China's Fujian province. Historically practiced in the Min Nan (閩南) speaking areas. It had since established itself as a popular art form in Taiwan.
In my youth memory, we had half day school in first and second grades. We were rush home and and watched glove puppetry everyday after school. However, the Taiwan Goverment banned puppetry in 1974 because the Goverment wanted to promote Mandarin.
The puppet's head uses wood carved into the shape of a hollow human head, but aside from the head, palms, and feet are also made of wood. The puppet's torso and limbs consist entirely of cloth costumes. Thai is why the puppetry in Mandarin literally means "cloth bag opera." At the time of the performance, the performer put his/her hand in the puppet's costume and makes it perform.
Finally, the rain has stopped. I went to Central Park (中央公園) and I was hoping that I can get some pictures. I got lucky!
By the way, can you guess what is the red beautiful stuff on the wall? It is called Apple Snail (福壽螺). Apple Snails is a family of large freshwater snails.
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