SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS
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drama. This is a process which reminds of Java where the drama performed by actors Wayang Orang mimics the much earlier leather-shadow-play Wayang Kulit.
Hsiao Nan-ying
a famous hua-tan of Ch'aochow opera, who came to Hong Kong a year ago, complains that the Ch'aochow opera here is still using the stiff movements which were influenced by the shadow-puppet movements. She also tells of a typical Ch'aochow opera in which the peculiarities of the shadow-puppet-theatre are used to great effect. A movement can suddenly stop and the moment can be endlessly prolonged. For example: a boy and a girl move independently in a festival-crowd and when they by chance look at each other, they instantly fall in love and remain motionless in the position in which they caught each other's eye. And the Old Man of the Moon appears, takes imaginary strings from their eyes and binds them together. They remain like statues looking at each other until somebody cuts the imaginary strings, the spell is broken and they regain their liveliness. This technique is believed to be derived from the shadow-play.
The Wang Family
The most important puppeteer-family in Hong Kong is the family Wang who have been puppeteers for at least three generations. At the end of the Imperial era the grandfather Wang Pao-yuan was active as a puppeteer and opera-actor, and his son who accompanied him became the famous Wang Chiao-tsou, also called Wang Chiao Y. The name Chiao-tsou meaning “itinerant teacher" was given to him, because he was a well-known itinerant teacher and opera-actor and also a puppeteer. Weary of the Sino-Japanese war he took his family to Hong Kong in 1938, together with a trunk of puppets. He immediately started to teach Ch'aochow opera and founded the Hsin-shun-hsiang puppet-troupe (The title means 'to prosper anew in Hong Kong'). His own family being very large, it was easy for him to give puppet-performances. Having for long performed himself in the leading role of hua-tan (character of a high-class beauty) he was a major force in the upsurge of Ch'aochow opera in Hong Kong in the last thirty years.
When Wang Chiao-tsou arrived here he found three established Ch'aochow puppet-groups. Hsin-t'ien-ts'ai gave up its puppets to become an opera troupe in 1962. Lao-yuan-cheng