- Chinese Name: 雲林布袋戲館
- Located At: Yunlin County (Central Taiwan)
- Year of Establishment: 2007
- Did You Know That … ?
- Glove puppetry - or budaixi - is one of the most iconic performing arts from Taiwan. The palm-orchestrated art also transcends national borders; each year, several foreign troupes from abroad join Taiwanese troupes in performing at the annual Yunlin International Puppetry Festival.
- English Address:
- No. 498 Linsen Rd. Section 1, Huwei Township, Yunlin County, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
- Opening Hours:
- Wednesdays through Sundays, 10am - 6pm
- Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
- Contact Number:
- +886-5-631-3080
- Website:
- http://tour.yunlin.gov.tw/huwei/index.asp
About the Art Form
There were two main factions of puppet troupes - Huang Hai-dai (黃海岱) and Chung Jen-hsiang (鍾任祥) - in Yunlin. Huang was well-known for detective drama so he was called "Murderous Uncle Dai.” Chung of the Hsin Hsing Ku Puppet Show Troupe became famous by integrating Shaolin martial arts with puppetry, so people called him "Master Ah-hsiang.”
Huang's life story stands as testament of the contemporary development of glove puppetry in Taiwan. His Wu Chou troupe was an influential faction and carried immense momentum, giving rise to more than 200 sub troupes that carry the namesake of Wu Chou (五洲) today.
A couplet written by the Wu Chou founder - "One utterance gave rise to ten emotions, ten fingers fan out to tell one good tale” - is memorialized as a pair of pillar couplets that decorate the entrance of the Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum.
About the Museum
The museum opened in 2007 with an inaugural exhibition featuring the legendary puppet hero Shi Yan-wen (史艷文), a character created by the aforementioned master Huang and popularized by his son, Huang Chun-hsiung (黃俊雄).
The meteoric rise of the scholarly swordsman in 1970 rewrote the history of glove puppetry in Taiwan. The fictitious character based in Yunlin even became the topic of academic discussion in schools and what elementary students wrote about during examinations. The Legislative Yuan eventually had to pass a resolution to ban the puppetry show for "disrupting the regular routine of farmers and workers” ... (read more)