After the rise of television: 1960–present

3.2.1 Historical background

The 1960s Taiwan was right in the middle of the period of martial law, and non-party activists were still fighting for the ruling administration to achieve political democracy and freedom of speech. The decade that followed continued to be a turbulent time for the

42

Taiwanese society, with major events happening that had a profound influence on the future political status of Taiwan. In the subsequent decades, Taiwan continued to undergo drastic political transformations that would constitute the political circumstances and problems that the modern Taiwanese society still faces today.

The 1970s started off rough for Taiwan—or Republic of China, as formally known—in the sense of international diplomacy. In 1971, when the United Nations was about to

recognize the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government to represent China in the organization, the KMT government withdrew from the UN in protest, downgrading Taiwan’s international status. This was the early 1970s, when the KMT government still insisted the Republic of China to be the sole legitimate representative government of China. In the early years of the 1970s, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), the only son of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), started to hire the local benshengren to work in the

administration and began to promote Taiwanization, also known as Taiwanese localization, in an attempt to alleviate the rivalry between the main two communities of benshengren and waishengren. In 1975, the control of the authoritarian KMT administration over the society began to decline along with Chiang Kai-shek’s death. As a result, after the mid-1970s, due to the general political atmosphere, the KMT government switched their original standpoint that Republic of China was the one and only legitimate representative government of China, and put forward a new goal of “unifying China based on the Three Principles of the People.” This

43

set of principles was developed by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙)⁷, often respectfully referred to as

“Father of the Nation,” who was a major figure during the late Qing dynasty and early years of the Republic of China. Revolutionist and founder of the KMT government as well as the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen was regarded as the leader and icon of China’s

transformation from Imperial China into the Republic of China. In 1979, 30 years after the founding of People’s Republic of China and the defeat of the KMT regime, the United States of America severed ties with the KMT-led Republic of China and established formal

diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China founded by the Chinese Communist Party, recognizing it as the only legitimate government of China. Following this major

diplomatic setback, the number of non-party protests and activities increased sharply, with the Kaohsiung Incident, also known as the Formosa Incident, being the turning point that had the most profound influence on the future democratization of the Taiwanese society. On the Human Rights Day of 1979, members of the Formosa Magazine assembled with a crowd in the city of Kaohsiung to hold a pro-democracy demonstration and give speeches to promote freedom and implementation of the democratic system, lifting of the ban on forming political parties, and the termination of martial law. Conflict between civilians and the riot police ensued, resulting in physical confrontation between both sides. The aftermath of the incident included a large number of arrests and military trials of non-party activists, some of whom

7 In the Chinese-speaking world, Sun Yat-sen is commonly referred to with the name Sun Zhongshan (孫中山).

44

even tortured and charged with insurrection. The Kaohsiung Incident was considered the largest police-civilian conflict after the February 28 Incident, and was a crucial tipping point in the progression of Taiwan’s political system toward democracy.

The next decade that followed proved to be a pivotal time for the Taiwanese

democratization. Since the KMT government came to Taiwan, bringing with it the regime of the Republic of China, which eventually became the official name for the island, Chiang Kai-shek had been serving as the President of the Republic of China for five straight terms, passing away on his fifth term in 1975 and succeeded by then-Vice President Yen Chia-kan (嚴家淦). At that time, the presidential term of office was six years, and the President and Vice President were elected indirectly through the National Assembly, an organization composed of delegates that were supposed to be elected by the people every six years.

However, when the KMT government came to Taiwan, mainland China was regarded as the

“fallen territory occupied by the communist” and was thus impossible to hold elections of the National Assembly delegates. Under such claims, the delegates remained in the Assembly for a total of 43 years, serving from 1948 to 1991, thus often ironically referred to as the

“Thousand-year Assembly.” After Yen Chia-kan finished the fifth term of presidency in 1978, Chiang Ching-kuo was elected as the sixth and seventh President of the Republic of China.

During Chiang Ching-kuo’s term, more and more non-party demonstrations demanded freedom of speech and a completely democratic political system, and Chiang’s attitude and

45

policy also shifted toward a more liberal and democratic approach. In 1985, Chiang

announced that the next President of Republic of China would not be a member of the Chiang family. The next year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was founded despite the martial law still in effect. Affected by the establishment of the first political party outside of KMT and the general political atmosphere, the government started to promote revolution policies such as lifting the martial law as well as the ban on political party and newspaper.

Martial law was then lifted in 1987. In the late years of his presidency, Chiang promoted liberalization both under international pressures as well as to respond to the domestic demand for political democratization. It was also during this time that the KMT government adopted a new attitude toward China and shifted from the Three Principles of the People to “unifying China based on democracy and freedom.” Although the martial law had been lifted, and the Taiwanese people no longer had to undergo military trials, White Terror still existed in the society as the government continued to silence dissidents by observing the temporary provisions passed in the early years of the KMT rule for the purpose of suppressing

rebellions. In 1989, Cheng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), founder of the non-party magazine Freedom Era Weekly and activist of complete freedom of speech, political democratization, and Taiwan independence, refused to appear in court when he was charged with insurrection.

When the police attempted to storm his magazine office, where he had locked himself, he committed suicide by self-immolation. Cheng, whose father migrated to Taiwan in the

46

Japanese times, was regarded as a waishengren. Nevertheless, growing up in Taiwan, he identified himself as a benshengren. Thus, he fought rigorously against the suppression of the one-party KMT government over the freedom of thought, and was extremely vocal about his support of the Taiwan independence movement. This incident became a drive for many reforms in the years to come, especially for those of a Taiwan independence nature.

After Chiang’s death in 1988, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), as Vice President, succeeded Chiang’s presidency, and was the eighth—and the last—President of the Republic of China that was elected by the National Assembly. When Lee first succeeded Chiang, he became the first benshengren to serve as the President of Republic of China and party chair of KMT.

Since at that time KMT was still dominated by waishengren, he was faced with a strong opposition from within the party. As part of the aftermath of the Cheng Nan-jung incident, Lee continued to promote legal amendments to encourage freedom of thought, speech, and the press, as well as academic freedom. Lee also ordered to release political criminals arrested in the past. The 1990s of the Taiwanese society opened with a student movement.

During the presidential election of Lee Teng-hui in March, 1990, because the President and Vice President were still elected by the National Assembly at the time, thousands of students assembled in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to participate in a demonstration.

They proposed four appeals, which included the disbandment of the National Assembly and the termination of the Temporary Provisions Effective during the Period of National

47

Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion, which had been effective for 42 years since 1948. The protest, called the Wild Lily student movement or March student movement, was the first large-scale student demonstration since the relocation of the KMT government to Taiwan. After Lee was elected as the eighth President of Republic of China a few days after the demonstration started, he immediately welcomed fifty students into the building and talked to them about their goals. Later on, he kept his promises to the students.

In 1991, he terminated the Temporary Provisions, which meant the Republic of China no longer denied that People’s Republic of China, or the Chinese Communist Party, legitimately represented mainland China. In the same year, he disbanded the “Thousand-year Assembly,”

with a new election of the delegates of the National Assembly scheduled at the end of the year. The demonstration thus marked a critical milestone in the process of Taiwan’s political democratization and had a profound influence on Taiwan’s future political structure and student movement. In his term, Lee continued to promote and reinforce democratization and Taiwanization, making six attempts of constitution amendment, successfully holding the first direct election of the President and Vice President in 1996, in which he was elected as the ninth President. Also, from 1996 onward, the initial six-year presidential term of office has been reduced to four years.

Through the sacrifices of many, Taiwan was able to make huge progress on its path to political democracy within a few decades. By 2000, Taiwan saw its very first party

48

alternation in the presidential election, with Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, elected as the 10^th President of the Republic of China. Under Chen, Lu Hsiu-lien (呂秀蓮) was the first and only woman in Taiwan’s history to serve as the Vice President of the Republic of China. After Chen served two terms, another party alternation took place in 2008, with Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) from KMT elected as President and Siew Wan-chang (蕭萬長) as Vice President. At this point, Taiwan, or Republic of China, practiced a complete democratic system, and the political structure became that of a two-party system, as opposed to the past one-party system dominated by the KMT. In 2016, DPP won the presidential election with Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as President, who became the first female President of the Republic of China.

3.2.2 Development of glove puppetry

Along with the dawn of the television era, neitaixi became the past, and television was the future. According to Chen (1990), televised glove puppetry can be categorized into three phases: the documentary phase (1962–1968), the picturizing phase (1970–1974), and the performative phase (1982–1989)⁸. In 1962, the first television station in Taiwan was born. At the time, Li Tian-lu (李天祿) was the first to have his glove puppetry performances broadcast on TV. It did not, however, turn out to be a successful attempt, owing to several factors

8 The corresponding Mandarin names for these phases are as follows: documentary phase (記錄式), picturizing phase (電影化), and performative phase (表現式).

49

(Hsieh, 2009, p. 171), including the fact that TV was still black and white at the time and had poor reception; Also, TV was not popularized yet, thus not many people had TV at home.

Most notably, the camera merely served as a recording device that documented the

performance, which means no changes were made about how the performances were carried out to adapt to the TV broadcasting. Another type of glove puppetry show that was

broadcasted during this time was the children’s glove puppetry show made in Mandarin, aimed at producing children’s programs with content such as fables and children’s stories from both Chinese and Western cultures. However, since the children’s glove puppetry show was made in Mandarin Chinese and its main purpose was largely educational, it did not attract a lot of attention from the general public.

Afterwards, televised glove puppetry was made successful in the picturizing phase by Huang Chun-hsiung (黃俊雄), son of the glove puppetry master Huang Hai-tai. Before he went into the television industry, Huang had already made attempts of shooting glove

puppetry movies on camera, most of which did not pan out, but gave him valuable experience that allowed him to adapt to the television industry very quickly. In 1958, his attempt of making Journey to the West⁹ as a glove puppetry cartoon in Taiwanese made groundbreaking progress on the technical level despite being a box office flop (Hsieh, 2009, p. 174). First of

9 Journey to the West is a classic novel written in the 16^th century during the Ming dynasty, and is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of the Chinese literature. The story tells of the journey of a monk accompanied by three disciples to India in search of Buddhist scriptures.

50

all, it was the very first attempt made at the combination of glove puppetry and the use of camera. Secondly, both Chinese and Western music were used in the production, with the narrating pre-recorded on tape. Also, the puppets were enlarged in order to look better on the camera, and since the language used in the movie was Taiwanese, Mandarin Chinese subtitles were shown on the screen. The Scholastic Swordsman Shi Yan-wen, the most famous and successful glove puppetry TV show, produced by Huang Chun-hsiung, became a sensation across the island in the 1970s and took over the entire television industry in Taiwan.

However, due to the government’s language policy, Taiwanese TV programs were limited down to a very few number of airing slots, and in 1974, Shi Yan-wen was forced to cancel because it enjoyed wide popularity and had such powerful influence on the Taiwanese people.

It was not until eight years later that the government lifted the ban, and the beloved character returned to the screen. In the late 1970s, the idea of Taiwanization began to rise in every aspect, ranging from the political environment to the literature sphere. During this time, due to the change in Taiwan’s political structure, the government officials no longer discriminated against the Taiwanese language but rather began to promote Taiwanization. As localization became an increasingly important subject, the ban on the Taiwanese-speaking glove puppetry show was finally lifted in 1982. In the picturizing stage, three revolutionary changes were made in the Taiwanese glove puppetry world (Hsieh, 2009, p. 179). The first major change was the use of the wide variety of music. When a main character appeared on screen, a song

51

would be selected to go with the character, which would become the character’s theme song.

The puppets and props also underwent revolutionary transformation. It was during this period that the puppets’ appearance gradually grew further away from that of the traditional puppets and became more realistic. The props and scenes were also growing more realistic, as Huang Chun-hsiung had realized that due to the lack of emotions and the limits of the puppets, these background props played a critical role in the show. Finally, while maintaining the tradition of the performer narrating the entire script, including all the characters, a new voice acting technique was introduced in this period, where male characters would be voiced by a male narrator, and female characters would be voiced by a female narrator. This was originally done in the hopes of improving the situation of the performer, who was most likely male, doing female characters, which could sometimes prove awkward. However, voice acting for characters also meant good cooperation with the performer, and when the person giving the puppet’s voice was not in sync with the person controling the puppet’s movements, it could not work as well as when it was the same person.

After the ban was lifted, as much as Shi Yan-wen was anticipated to return, the power of the television industry was already starting to wear out. After the Huang father and sons finished making one last show in 1989, they quit their glove puppetry career on television and shifted their focus to DVD production. As the Huang family left the television industry, the history of televised Taiwanese glove puppetry also came to an end.

52

As mentioned in previous paragraphs, glove puppetry, when first introduced to Taiwan, took the form of a simple portable stage for the performer to carry around, which eventually evolved into waitaixi, which was performed outdoors, mostly at temple squares during religious events; In contrast, neitaixi was performed indoors in theatres, and served a more commercial purpose. Now, neitaixi first appeared during the Japanese rule but only came to prominence in the late 1940s, whereas waitaixi had always existed since glove puppetry first spread to Taiwan. In the 1970s, when neitaixi’s popularity plunged, many glove puppetry troupes turned to other means to make a living. Some turned to the television industry, some turned to radio broadcasting, and some turned their attention to waitaixi (Hsieh, 2009, p.

210). During this time, to compete against each other for opportunities of being hired to perform, the puppetry troupes would make great efforts to come up with better special effects and performing techniques to attract more audience. Therefore, in the 1970s and 1980s, waitaixi went through a period of prosperity and popularity, and served as another source of entertainment for the public apart from the glove puppetry TV shows. However, like neitaixi, waitaixi did not enjoy the spotlight for long. In the mid-1980s, due to the high demand of performances, some puppetry troupes started to pre-record the narration on recording tape.

Before long, professional voice actors began selling tapes to the troupes. This resulted in a drastic increase in the number of puppetry troupes, since many glove puppetry assistants began to start their own troupes. While the number increased, however, the quality of the

53

performances dropped. As the market became saturated, the focus shifted from the content quality to the price of each performance, which means glove puppetry troupes started to compete against each other by reducing the price instead of improving the content (Hsieh, 2009, p. 217). Under such circumstances, waitaixi began to decline, and in today’s Taiwanese glove puppetry, the classical waitaixi never recovered from the decline, and remained quite weak compared to the widely popular modern form of glove puppetry, which can be seen as an advanced variation of the televised glove puppetry.

Conclusion

Throughout the history of the Taiwanese glove puppetry, it seems Wu’s theory that the

Throughout the history of the Taiwanese glove puppetry, it seems Wu’s theory that the