Sanzhi Day Trip II: Li Tianlu Puppetry Museum

Continued from this post


The Li Tian-lu Taiwanese Puppetry Museum (李天祿布袋戲文物館) in Sanzhi is worth a visit for anyone interested in Taiwanese culture, history, Japanese occupation, film or puppetry. Li was a famous puppet master who was also a principal character in the well-known Taiwanese movie "The City of Sadness", was involved in Japanese propaganda, was an international puppeteering champion (so says his museum) and remains internationally famous for those in the know. 

We happened to be in the area and while I'm more enthusiastic about Taiwanese opera than puppetry, it's still an item of cultural importance and a visit is very worthwhile - if only to look at the many finely crafted puppets and costumes on display.

This is a puppet portrayal of Dr. Mackay - seems fairly accurate to me. But...

C'mon, is this a caricature of a wealthy late 19th/early 20th century white guy or what?

Apparently this is what the master of puppet-making who created this thought white women looked like.
Okaaaay...

A "mosquito god" puppet

Li Tian-lu himself

Admission to the museum is NT70 (no student discount) and they're closed by 5pm. Li's actual residence is across the street. The museum itself is in a lovely old building that I personally found architecturally interesting. There is a small souvenir shop including a place where kids can DIY their own puppet for NT$80-100- or you can buy one to take home and DIY - and both high and low end puppets are on sale, ranging from NT$300 (for a kid who will just destroy it) to NT$4900 (for the connoisseur). There's also a small coffeeshop area. If you're OK with going uphill it's walkable from the more urban part of Sanzhi, but I'd recommend, if you don't have your own transport - which I rarely do! - to grab a cab up here and walk back down. Not far down the hill I spotted a bus stop but didn't have the opportunity to note which buses stopped here, when the service ran and how often.


The area around the museum is a hillside village with a very artsy feel and many small restaurants and coffeeshops. A lot of the small houses and apartments are for rent - you could totally chuck it all and become an artist if you were of a mind!

We got pizza at a "Mediterranean style" place called Pizza Olmo. I wouldn't call it "great" - not the best pizza I've had - but it wasn't bad at all, for boondocks-of-Taiwan pizza. The cheese passed muster and there was no weird mayonnaise, and only nominal corn. I recommend the wild mushroom basil or garlic bacon if you eat here. There are some good views down to the ocean and it's a nice place to hang out with friends. Closer to the museum is a pottery shop and classy coffeeshop with "French desserts" that I would like to check out sometime called Cypress29.

Dude, don't ask questions you don't want answers to.

This area has an artsy feel and is a lovely place to hang out and walk around for awhile

I call this very unfriendly cat "Cuddlemuffins".
It tried to bite my sister.

View from Pizzeria Olmo

We caught a bus back to Danshui at about 7pm, and were home by 9. All in all, a not-too-taxing day trip after a stressful time that allowed us to get out of the city, breathe some fresh air, spend minimal cash and enjoy the sunshine while seeing something new. Worth it for the expat who wants to go up to the coast but has grown tired of the usual spots and isn't interested in bumming around Danshui yet again.

Sanzhi Day Trip Part I: Dingshan Shell Temple and Lee Denghui's Birthplace

Not feeling like exerting ourselves too much (it's been a stressful few weeks) but wanting badly to get out of Taipei City on a sunny weekend day - those are rare enough as it is - we took a fun and relaxing day trip to Sanzhi (三芝) on the northeast coast. Until today I'd known it mainly as the place that my Taiwanese biking friends like to go (I don't bike but I have a few local friends and acquaintances who are really into it) for the countryside outside of town and the cherry blossoms that don't attract as many crowds as the ones closer to Yangmingshan.

It does, however, have plenty to entertain the non-biking day-tripper, and has some good places to bike if you're into that sort of thing. Unfortunately, you need your own transportation to get around most of the most interesting parts, or do what we did and go as a group of 4 and arrange a taxi (NT$500 for the shell temple and puppetry museum; pay the driver a bit more if you want to stroll around the lovely village where the puppetry museum is located and eat or have coffee there). With 4 people this is a pretty reasonable price for chartered transportation. I'll pay NT$200 to not have to drive! 

In this post I'll post a few pictures from Lee Denghui's (or Teng-hui if you wish) birthplace and the shell temple, and later on I'll post a few from the puppetry museum and surrounding artsy village.

Let's face it, the most developed/urbanized part of town is kind of bland and ugly, but most buses from Danshui - leaving every 20 minutes - will take you to the "visitor's center and gallery" from where you can arrange a taxi. The gallery isn't much but Lee Denghui's birthplace - an old three-sided farmhouse style brick building - is out back and worth a quick look.

My sister outside Lee Denghui's birthplace

The area around the old house is not as well-maintained and has some current residents, along with their dog (above) and pants (below).

The Shell Temple (頂山寺) is up a winding hairpin-laden mountain road and attracts scores of local daytrippers. The outside is gorgeous, the inside is tacky, but as temples go it's quite unique. I'd put it up there in the "Huh, Taiwan's full of temples but I ain't seen THIS before" category with the Keelung Fairy Cave Temple, Caotun's weird medicine gourd temple and the crazy gold gate at Donggang's Donglong Temple.

The road up is extremely steep and not really one I'd recommend trying on foot or on bike if you aren't very fit, but if you can get a ride up there it would be a perfectly fine walk down, with lovely farmland scenery and views out to the ocean on the way down. Bring water and a hat. Or, if you have your own transportation, make it a leisurely drive - you may want to stop and take short walks to enjoy the scenery. It's easy to get carsick - I did - so bring some Green Oil, White Flower Oil or Tiger Balm.

The best way to introduce it is to show you the best of my (iPhone) pictures - so here you go:

Basic provisions are available at the temple (some sold as offerings, some you can buy to eat or drink), and to enter the back corridor you have to pray (just grab some incense, light it and bow a few times in front of the altar before sticking the incense in the pot behind you - no biggie). There are stores on either side, one selling religious items and the other selling super tacky - but also kind of super fun - "handmade" shell souvenirs. I totally bought a soap dish, because I needed a soap dish.

From there you can head down to the puppetry museum and artsy village area - which I'll post about in an hour or two.

Continue reading here

Dance

Bunun (I think...please correct me if I'm wrong) dance in Kaohsiung's Central Park MRT Station

While we were in Kaohsiung a few weeks ago, we happened upon this aboriginal dance show taking place in the Central Park MRT Station. We'd stopped in the aboriginal goods stores opened - so we were told - partially thanks to the efforts of Chen Chu - to buy Taiwanese coffee and other small items as the show was about to start. This was not the first time we've seen aboriginal dancing - sometimes in the context of actual festivals where the dancing has some sort of cultural meaning, and sometimes...not.

If you've spent any amount of time in Taiwan at all, you've surely encountered these dance shows - you can see them every weekend evening at the Naruwan Indigenous People's Market at the intersection of Huanhe and Guangzhou Roads not far from Longshan Temple (and practically across the street from the historic Xuehai Academy, the first "university" in Taiwan - now a family shrine - also mentioned in the post linked to above). On certain days they're held in Kaohsiung's Central Park station, and there are other venues in which to see them, as well. Both Taipei City Hall and Kaohsiung Central Park MRT Stations have aboriginal stores, but only Kaohsiung's also has dances.

It's rare to have the knowledge and chance to attend many of the more authentic festivals (Pasta'ai is the easiest to get to, and even that takes some work if you want to go to Wufeng, not Nanzhuang), and you're about as likely to encounter the everyday use of traditional dress as you are to come across a Taiwanese woman walking down the street in a full qipao ("qipao-inspired" doesn't count, nor does a tiny dog in a qipao costume - a labrador in a qipao might count)...but seeing these dance shows is dead easy if you are so inclined.

Amis Tribe dance in Taipei's Naruwan Market

I'm not sure what to make of them, honestly. It is absolutely true that many (most? all?) of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan incorporate dancing into festivals and rituals, to the point where non-aboriginal Taiwanese can often imitate the basic moves of common dances.

Dancing at Pasta'ai 2010 in Wufeng

They certainly help spread at least basic knowledge of these tribal cultures, little-known outside Taiwan. They help bring to the public eye more recognition that there is more to Taiwanese culture than that which came from China (or Japan) - more so than museums that, while important (and however excellent), are simply not as active, interactive or in the public eye.

And yet, I can't help but also watch them and feel like one adjective that could be used to describe these dances is "exploitative". Maybe. I'm not sure about that, but the thought has stayed with me long enough to spur me to blog about it. These dances, taken out of context and set down in a subway station or food court - do they really accomplish more than a fleeting thought of "yeah, aboriginal stuff is pretty cool" in the minds of the audience? Does it convey any lasting knowledge or encourage more in-depth learning about aboriginal affairs?

I guess I just don't know what to think, and yes, I realize sometimes it's OK not to have a strong opinion, and to instead muse on possible points of view.

On one hand, many people would never be exposed to this important cultural element of Taiwan if it weren't for such dance shows. That goes for locals, many (not all!) of whom wouldn't actively seek out such facets of their own national history, as well as foreigners, especially those who don't stay long enough to gain such exposure otherwise (click on the "seven hellish months" link). These dances are also generally related in some way to aboriginal stores and eateries - I love millet wine so I find myself in the stores a lot - which I am sure helps boost exposure, and therefore revenue. For what it's worth, the performers seem to enjoy themselves, and the shows do attract a reasonably sized audience, and the shows seem to be organized by the dancers themselves and not by some outside force being all "show us your quaint Native Dances!" (If that were the case I'd be disgusted).

There's also the fact that live performances, to a far greater extent than in contemporary America, are more ingrained in the public psyche. Back home you'd be hard-pressed to find a local band or singing group playing under the town square gazebo anymore, and sadly, the tradition of holiday caroling has almost died out (I'm a fan of the old-school tradition, which involves lots of wassail or a suitably alcoholic substitute, and is much more "rowdy kids demanding treats" than "family oriented").

And yet here, there's super-loud karaoke - seriously, who here hasn't started a hike up a mountain only to come across a temple and associated public complex in which someone was atonally screaming their favorite classic songs? You know you have. Don't even pretend. There are seemingly-randomly staged budaixi puppet shows (I regularly come across them in Jingmei Night Market, put on for no discernible reason).

Budaixi - Taiwanes puppetry - puppet (without body) sporting an unusual number of heads

There are free-to-the-public showings of Taiwanese opera (gezaixi) outside temples as well as in the square around Yongle Market on Dihua Street...just because the people want opera.

Taiwanese opera - gexaixi - free to the public outside Bao'an Temple

Troupes of kids practice Michael Jackson moves to Jamiroquai hits - yeah, I don't know either - or communally engage in urban dance moves - in the esplanades of sports centers and underground malls in Taipei. Finally, what is a temple fair if not a series of live performances, from lion dancers to dragon dancers to bajiajiang?

Ba jia jiang outside of Qingshan Gong during a temple fair on Guiyang St., Taipei

Practically everywhere you turn there's a live show of some sort - some of them transcendent and others amateur-but-charming.

I can see how aboriginal dance shows would fit into that sort of culture.

The second part of the show in MRT Central Park

On the other hand, taking these dances out of context, putting the dancers in costumes they otherwise never wear, that likely haven't been worn commonly since their grandparents' generation, and sticking it in a subway station does make me wonder. Is it Culture Lite? Is it selling out something that would otherwise be authentic?

I don't have the answers, but I have to admit that I've been gnawing on the questions.

Creepy Dolls

In my last post I ended with the creepiest of the modern-style puppets (布帶戲）on display at the Red House Theater in Ximen. He was sort of a Chucky Meets Puppet Clown Meets Eastern Orthodox Priest Zombie, and utterly terrifying:

"Take your Communion, little Josef, and then I shall EAT your BRAIN."

But that exhibit had plenty more than Happypants the Exorcist Clown above. There were placards and signs with history and artistic notes on the puppets, but I won't repeat anything here. You'll have to go see for yourself.

There was also this guy:

Regal as he can be with Christmas lights on his head. And this guy:

...who is thinking very unhappily of something. Near him is one of the puppets that actually resembles traditional bu dai xi:

This guy and his monster/goblin/immortal/spirit brethren show up a lot in antique puppets and traditional shows. Unlike the guy below, who is quite unique:

...and seems to happy to have a foot on his head. Not nearly so serious as...

...this guy, who really needs a vacation. As for the puppet below, I once took a photo with far too much flash of a statue of Chiang Kai Shek, and it came out looking somewhat like this guy:

No really, it did:

Well, I think it did, anyway.

The guy below reminds me a lot of the demon Ravana from the Indian epic the Ramayana (sort of like the Odyssey of Indian literature. I consider the Mahabharata to be more like the Iliad, and it makes one wonder if the tradition of two great epics, one about a war and the other about a dashing adventure, has some sort of subconscious basis (but then Chinese literature has for epics and they don't quite fit those roles), or if those stories are rooted in extremely ancient Indo-European myths that are far older than we ever imagined.

Anyway, Ravana, Taiwan-style:

And for good measure, a random missionary?