30-second overview: Budaixi (布袋戲, glove puppetry) is Taiwan's most recognizable traditional puppet theater. Brought across from Hokkien immigrants in the 17th century, it has undergone six transformations on Taiwan: temple-square ritual offerings, Kominka makeover, TV ratings miracle, government bans, videotape pivot, and international co-production. In 1970, Huang Jun-hsiung's Yun-zhou Confucian Knight (《雲州大儒俠》) starring Shih Yen-wen ran for four years across 583 episodes, setting a 97% rating record never matched in Taiwan TV history; in 1974 it was banned; in 1988 Pili pivoted to videotapes and built its own world; in 2016, the Taiwan-Japan co-production Thunderbolt Fantasy (《東離劍遊紀》), written by Gen Urobuchi, brought glove puppetry into the global anime view.
On March 2, 1970, TTV launched a televised glove puppet show. In the months that followed, factories saw workers leaving their posts at broadcast time, fields fell quiet in the afternoons, and TV sets near schools were surrounded by students cutting class — Yun-zhou Confucian Knight triggered the most peculiar cultural work-stoppage in Taiwan's history1. Huang Jun-hsiung's Shih Yen-wen series ran continuously until 1973, totaling 583 episodes, scoring a 97% rating on TTV that has never been surpassed2. Budaixi (Hokkien: Pò͘-tē-hì), this palm-held art that crossed the Black Ditch (Taiwan Strait) with Hokkien immigrants, grew into a life utterly different from its homeland on Taiwanese soil.
Two Migrant Streams Brought Two Sounds
Budaixi entered Taiwan with Hokkien immigrants, bringing two distinct traditions. Zhangzhou and Quanzhou each had their own sound — Quanzhou brought nanguan strings, emphasizing literary postures; Zhangzhou brought beiguan gongs and drums, favoring martial pacing. Each took root separately on Taiwan island, branching into distinct schools3.
| School | Music | Characteristics | Representative Figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nanguan School (Quanzhou) | Nanguan strings | Delicate postures, literary dialogue | Li Tien-lu (Yi Wan Jan), Hsu Wang (Hsiao Hsi Yuan) |
| Beiguan School (Zhangzhou) | Beiguan gongs/drums, suona | Martial effects, brisk pacing | Huang Hai-tai (Wuzhouyuan), Chung Jen-hsiang (Hsinhsingko) |
The temple square was the original stage. Puppeteers performed Three Kingdoms or Investiture of the Gods stories before the deities; wooden puppets came alive between the fingers; gong-and-drum and nanguan strings mingled with the incense smoke at the temple gate — this was the era of "old book opera" (古冊戲), when art and faith had not yet parted ways.
📝 Curator's note: The split between north and south schools is rooted in immigrant accents. These were two groups carrying different memories, each guarding the sound they brought from the other side of the sea, on the same island.
Kominka: A Ban That Accidentally Birthed New Tools
In 1937, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, and the Japanese colonial authorities pushed the "drum-and-music ban" policy in Taiwan. Traditional opera faced suspension4. Glove puppet troupes were forced into Japanese-style costumes, performing Japanese stories like Mito Kōmon, with nanguan and beiguan music yielding to Western instruments and dialogue switched from Hokkien to Japanese5.
The paradox of this period of suppression: the stage-set techniques and modern lighting effects forcibly introduced ended up sticking around. After the war these techniques became the starting point for "golden-light glove puppetry" (金光布袋戲) — a more visually striking new form, growing from the cracks of the ban6.
Golden Light: Martial Law Pushed Puppetry Into the Theater
After WWII martial law was imposed, large outdoor gatherings were restricted, and budaixi was pushed off the temple square, forced into ticketed indoor theater performances. The survival rule was simple: make the audience feel the ticket was worth buying. Puppets were enlarged — from the traditional ~30 cm to over 50 cm; costumes were studded with sequins; dry ice, pyrotechnics, and colored lighting all came in. "Golden light shimmering, auspicious aura streaming" became the trademark line of that era6.
Golden-light budaixi was a local variant grown under commercial pressure. Distant from tradition, but its will to survive was thoroughly traditional.
The Politics of Shih Yen-wen's 97% and the Ban
In 1970, when Huang Jun-hsiung brought puppet theater to the TV screen, no one foresaw the consequences. Yun-zhou Confucian Knight triggered phenomena like "empty streets, factory worker absenteeism, students cutting class," and the government grew uneasy1. In 1974, the Government Information Office of the Executive Yuan banned all Hokkien-language puppet shows on broadcast TV, citing "disrupting normal work schedules of farmers and workers" — another unspoken reason was the Mandarin-promotion policy then underway: Hokkien itself was unacceptable to the government2.
Television budaixi went silent for eight years until it was permitted to broadcast again in 1982. But those eight years forced it onto a path longer than television.
Pili's Pivot: Bypass the TV Networks, Self-Distribute
In 1988, Huang Hai-tai's grandsons, the brothers Huang Chiang-hua and Huang Wen-tse, made a decision that seemed risky at the time: abandoning the TV broadcast format and entering the videotape rental and sales market7. No longer relying on TV station censorship and time-slot constraints, they switched to subscription videotapes, letting loyal viewers chase the series themselves.
That decision planted a wuxia universe stretching across thirty years. Pili continues to update today, accumulating thousands of characters and constructing a self-created mythology unique in Taiwan's pop culture. Its foundation was that choice to refuse being defined by TV networks.
_Thunderbolt Fantasy_: When Gen Urobuchi Met the Palm-Held Theater
In 2016, the renowned Japanese screenwriter Gen Urobuchi, after visiting a Pili exhibition in Taipei, resolved to introduce this art to Japanese audiences. His collaboration with Pili, Thunderbolt Fantasy (《東離劍遊紀》), aired simultaneously in Taiwan and Japan, sending shockwaves through the international anime community8.
Urobuchi has said he himself is a Pili fan; the collaboration began at the moment he was moved at that Taipei exhibition, not out of any obligation to cultural exchange. Having a top-tier foreign creator come knocking, asking to collaborate, rests on decades of accumulated aesthetic confidence — and on an art form to which one is willing to entrust one's story.
📝 Curator's note: From temple-square thanksgiving rituals to Taiwan-Japan co-production, every step budaixi took bears the imprint of pressure. The Kominka ban, the TV ban, the videotape gamble — every forced transformation left behind new techniques or new markets. What it learned under pressure was how to find the next way out.
Further reading
- Taiwanese Shadow Puppetry — Also rooted in Min-Yue and grown in Mituo, Kaohsiung, this traditional shadow theater also survived Kominka by adapting Japanese-language scripts; another lineage of Taiwan's traditional puppet arts
- Taiwan Temple Festivals and Zhentou Culture — The temple square was budaixi's earliest stage; temple festivals and budaixi share the same sky in Taiwan's folk-religion landscape
- National Theater and Concert Hall — Another facet of Taiwan's traditional performing arts moving from temple squares onto contemporary theater stages, opened in 1987 to witness Taiwan's cultural democratization
References
- Taiwan Panorama: A Century in the Palm — Glove Puppet Master Huang Hai-tai — Documents the century-long heritage of the Huang Hai-tai family and Taiwan glove puppetry, including Huang Jun-hsiung's Yun-zhou Confucian Knight 583-episode run, the "students cutting class, workers absent" empty-streets phenomenon, and the "banned for disrupting normal work schedules of farmers and workers" record.↩
- Taiwanese Glove Puppetry — Wikipedia — Comprehensive history of Taiwan glove puppetry, recording "set Taiwan's TV ratings record at 97%" and "the government, citing the promotion of Mandarin and disruption of normal work schedules of farmers and workers, banned broadcast television from airing Yun-zhou Confucian Knight and all televised glove puppet performances."↩
- Glove Puppetry — National Cultural Heritage Database — The Bureau of Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Culture's official registration explanation for budaixi, including style characteristics of north and south schools, Taiwan localization processes, and the background of national traditional performing arts designation.↩
- Taiwan Glove Puppetry Chronology — Yunlin Glove Puppet Museum — Yunlin Glove Puppet Museum's compiled chronology, including records of traditional troupes being forced to perform Japanese-style scripts and switch to Western music after the 1937 drum-and-music ban.↩
- Development and Transformation of Taiwan Glove Puppetry — Yunlin Glove Puppet Museum — Explains policy details on glove puppetry being required to perform Japanese stories in Japanese with Western music during the Kominka period, and the impact of stage techniques introduced during this period on later golden-light puppetry.↩
- Days Without Television — Golden-Light Glove Puppetry, "Golden Light Shimmering, Auspicious Aura Streaming" | StoryStudio — Explains how postwar glove puppetry moved from temple squares into theaters, with enlarged puppets, multi-layer painted stages, and the 1953 Big Hero Hundred-Grass Old Man announcing the golden-light era.↩
- Pili "Golden" Light — Traditional Puppet Theater Creates Business Opportunities | Taiwan Panorama — Taiwan Panorama records Pili's complete pivot to the videotape market in 1988 and the establishment of independent distribution channels, and the Huang Chiang-hua/Huang Wen-tse brothers' founding of an independent brand.↩
- Thunderbolt Fantasy — Wikipedia — Complete information on Taiwan-Japan co-production Thunderbolt Fantasy, including July 2016 simultaneous Taiwan-Japan premiere, Gen Urobuchi as screenwriter, the origins of the Pili International Multimedia × Japan Nitro+ collaboration, and Urobuchi's defining moment visiting the Pili exhibition in Taipei.↩