Please scroll to the bottom of this page for media of the performances.

I was unable to take pictures of our performance because I was performing. However, I did manage to take pictures of our audiences as they trickled into the venue while backstage. Although you won’t be able to appreciate pictures of our shows, you’ll be able to see performing arts from a puppeteer’s perspective.

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In addition to performances around Hong Kong, I routinely visit my teacher’s studio in Shek Kip Mei to help prepare/repair puppets for upcoming shows and recordings. I travel with my teacher to help him when he stars in advertisements around Hong Kong.

 

A favourite memory of mine is the meals that entail each puppet performance. Returning victorious form yet another successful performance, the puppet troupe eats lunch together in nearby Cha Chan Tings or back in our studio. Our meals range from dim sum feasts, takeout, to cup noodles. I feel that the meal is the compensation for my hard work because my teachers always cover the fees. Though I felt guilty and offered to pay every single time, they insisted that meals were gifts from them to me.

 

Our performances always elicit sincere ovations from our audience, from bright-eyed elementary school children to nostalgic elderly. The elderly school security guard at St. Rose of Lima’s School exclaimed that she hadn’t seen puppet performances since her childhood, her casual remark alerting me that more than just puppets, I held the fading memories of a generation.

 

Each performance in Hong Kong takes me back to twelve-years-old, in Macha, the first time I ever saw a puppet show. Although the puppets we perform with are of the Southern School, slightly different from Macha’s Northern school in the controlling rods and larger size of puppets, my excitement for this art persists. Just like in my memory, I saw our diverse audience connected through the common love of puppetry. From Buddhist schoolchildren to Southeast Asian immigrant children to local Hong Kong children, everybody’s eyes were enthralled by the same moving shadow even as their mother tongues differed. Acting as an English translator and the MC for shows in schools where children did not speak Cantonese Chinese (Delia Man Kiu English Primary School), I discovered that communication wasn’t confined to verbs. Communication happens when emotions are passed between people, and art is its perfect vehicle.

 

Stepping out from the puppet screen, I stand on stage in front of my audience after every performance. The children always point at me. “That girl is so young,” they would whisper to one another. The rest of the world seems to think that traditions dwell in the world of elderly.  Shadow puppetry is no exception. I hope that my presence secularises the sacred tradition for my audience so that they, too, will pick up the puppet’s rods and perpetuate our legacy.

 

I must give special thanks to Mr. Wong Fai, my Shadow (and Glove) puppetry teacher in Hong Kong, without whom my journey with traditional Chinese puppet arts would have been impossible. I am grateful for the opportunity to perform as a member of a professional puppet troupe around my home city. This journey has taken me down various crevices of an unexplored world.

 

Truly, art is meant to be shared. I make art for the people—my people.

 

Cheers to the preservation of Chinese shadow puppetry!