Lord
scholar (xiang gong ye), a classic marionette
play, was often performed as an interlude at the
beginning of a formal performance. One of its
arias says, "If you ask who first made
marionettes,
it was Chen ping who make them in the
Han Dynasty."
This tells an old tale that Han Gaozu, Emperor of the Han Dynasty, accepted Chen
ping's trick of performing marionette beauties on
the low city walls so that the Hun army was forced
to withdraw. As a result, Han Gaozu honoured the
marionette show with the title of "Imperial
Entertainment." In the Tang Dynasty, Chen Yuanguang commanded his troops into Fujian where
he set up a town named Zhangzhou and
brought in the cultures of the
central plains, including the marionette
show and the carving skills. At that time Buddhism
was quite current. Zhangzhou was then called the Buddhistic Land.
Temples and shrines could be found here and there.
Whenever people went there to prostrate themselves
before the figures, a marionette show would be
given. And the marionette carving skills in Zhangzhou developed rapidly.
The marionette performance was later used
not only for driving out ghosts and getting rid of
disasters but for weddings, birthday parties,
celebrating a new born
baby and the
completion of his first month of life. The
marionette performance gradually developed into
two forms. One is moved by strings, the other is
moved by hands. The Zhangzhou puppet manufacturer
that adopts the folk traditional carving
skills and the technique of the expressions of
facial make-ups in dramas has made the puppet
figures more distinctive and more bright-looking
than before. The puppet figures in fine colourful
clothes and ornaments are well received as family
collections, popular gifts and the children's favourite toys.
Yuchuan Handicraft Manufacture, the
aristocratic puppet-carving family, will
constantly improve his skills to share the
artistic charms with all enthusiasts, all
collectors at home and abroad.
