To continue the tour of lesser known museums in Taipei (see previous posts on Museum of Drinking Water and Miniatures Museum) I visited a puppet museum at the Puppetry Art Center of Taipei. At the time I visited it seemed I was the only person there and the lack of English suggested that there aren’t that many foreign visitors coming in. It’s too bad, really, since it’s a really lovely little museum to display one of the very interesting Taiwanese culture aspects I got to see so much of during God birthday weekends while living in the traditional southern city of Tainan. The shows I’ve seen in Tainan had much more than just colorful puppets in them, there was action, horribly loud live music, surprising live fireworks, "crazy" stunts (puppets spinning plates on sticks), and what not. It’s an experience.
The official website introduces :
[…] Puppetry Art Center of Taipei was born from a passion for the art of puppetry. In 1998, Lin Ching-fu, chairman of the Taiyuan Arts and Culture Foundation, donated his personal collection of puppets, which he had gathered over several decades, to the Taipei City Government, in the hope of establishing a venue where these puppets could be preserved and exhibited in perpetuity.
On August 7, 2004, the brand new Puppetry Art Center of Taipei, dedicated exclusively to the display, performance, teaching, and collection of puppets and puppetry, was opened next to the CPCity Living Mall, the biggest shopping mall in East Asia. […]
Connecting tradition and modernity, building a bridge between the puppetry art of East and West, Puppetry Art Center of Taipei has become the best place for people in Taiwan and visitors from all over the world to learn about puppets, appreciate puppets, and play with puppets.
So, let’s go in and have a look.
This is usually the setup for the traveling puppet theaters…
The drama is usually accompanied by some squealing instruments …
But, naturally, what we’re there to see are the puppets. And you really have all sorts…
An interesting place to spend an hour or two. Maybe more if there’s a show running, which you can catch atleast once a day.
Outside the museum are some curious structures and statues …
But this is what the complex looks like from the outside…
David on Formosa helped me discover there is actually another puppet museum in Taipei – the Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum (林柳新紀念偶戲博物館).
Be sure to check out the visitor information before making plans to arrive.
More on the Taipei Puppet Museum:
- The Puppetry Art Center of Taipei (台北偶戲館) – OZSoapBox
- Puppetry Art Center of Taipei – Mango Vine
- Puppetry Art Center of Taipei – Taiwan Government
- Puppetry Art Center of Taipei – Taipei Travel
- Puppetry Art Center of Taipei – Sandy River
Looks worth a visit. Love the lion puppet.
yeah, it’s definitely something you might enjoy. 🙂 been seeing more of your photography lately through various links… amazing stuff.