Master of Glove Puppetry

Tien-Lu LI

Four generations, four family names. His life was destined to be a legend.

Li Tien-Lu was born at the corner of Bei-men street, Da-dau-cheng District, Taipei in 1910, which is now around the intersection of Yanping North road and Bei-men street at Taipei.

Li Tien-Lu's grandfather was named HeTu. He was his family name until an accident happened which make him to be adopted by the Shiu's and thus changed his name as He Shui Tu. Li Tien-Lu's father, the son of He Shui Tu, was called Shui Jin-Mu.

However, because of Shui Jin-Mu's uxorilocal marriage in the Li's, Li Tien-Lu had his surname as his mother. Like his father, Li Tien-Lu also had his marriage uxorilocal and became the Chen's son-in-law. His wife, Chen Cha, was the daughter of Chen A-Lai, owner of the troupe, “Yue Hwa Yuan”. They had two boys and two girls. Half of them were surnamed Li and the others, Chen. In the book《The Puppet Master》, Li Tien-Lu once sighed his life miserable. Four generations with four family names, traditional concepts about one's responsibility to carry on family pedigree and uxorilocal marriage opened the legendary life of the puppet master, Li Tien-Lu.

It is the bridle and spur that makes a good horse.
Li Tien-Lu's father, Shui Jin-Mu was also a puppeteer whose teacher, Shui Jin-Shuei in《Chu Yang Tai》,was the apprentice of the Quanzhou Nan Kuan puppet master, Chen Po. Li Tien-Lu started studying Chinese literature since he was seven in private school, “Tung Wen Jai”, until he went to Japanese elementary school at the age of twelve.

During this period, by day Li Tien-Lu studied ancient books as Three-Character Classics and Golden Treasury of Quatrains and Octaves hard; by afternoon he learned art from his father and followed his father performed puppet everywhere.

Shui Jin-Mu was a strict father. Any slight mistakes while performing the puppet were not acceptable and would lead to serious punishment. Therefore, it is common for little Li Tien-Lu to be knocked by puppets ruthlessly or even be kicked out of the stage.

Li Tien-Lu also confessed that those days apprenticing himself to his father were the most miserable part in his life. Yet maybe it is this kind of strict teaching that makes him world-renowned nowadays.

The mountain-years, laying solid basic skills.
Because of Li Tien-Lu's stepmother's dislike of him and the down payment of local troupe in Wenshan County that his father had already taken, Li Tien-Lu had no choice but left home alone with his immature skills and performed puppet around Wenshan, Shihding and Shenkeng when he was fourteen. At the beginning, he could only played two dramas, “Luo Ding Liang” and “Kuei Shing killed the monkey”.

Nevertheless, every since he had available times, he would go back to Taipei to learn new drama from his father, buy new puppets and then perform back in mountains.

Few years passed, his skills gradually improved. More and more audience liked his performance and even was willing to follow him over mountains just for watching drama after drama.

Back to Taipei, the rising star in the Taiwanese Puppet Theater.
At the age of eighteen, Li Tien-Lu came back to Taipei. After those years in mountains, all he thought in mind was to succeed and become famous in Taipei's highly competitive Taiwanese drama companies.

At first, he established “Yu Hwa Yuan Puppet Troupe” with the back-stage musicians in “You Shan Jing”. However, it didn't last for long time because of some reasons. Later, he performed in both Nan Kuan puppet troupes “Lung Feng Ge” and “Yue Hwa Yuan”. Also, it is during this period that he met with Huang Hai-Tai and Jung Ren-Shiang, who were already two well-renowned persons in the puppet theater at that time, and had friendship as good as brothers.

When Li Tien-Lu was twenty, he became the son-in-law of the Chen's family. He married Chen Cha, the daughter of Chen A-Lai, the owner of “Yue Hwa Yuan” and still served as leading performer in “Yue Hwa Yuan”. At the same time, with the ambition to have his own troupe, Li Tien-Lu started to prepare lots of puppets and a stage.

Two years after getting married, by the establishment of I Wan Jan Li Tien-Lu's dream finally came true. He took areas near Binjiang Street as performing center in the beginning. There were around ten performances in a month. Gradually, the influence of I Wan Jan extended to Keelung, Nangang, Lujhou and Sanshia.

By the invitation of the owner of “Chi Wen Ge”, Wu A-Wen, the Quanzhou puppet master, Chen Po had his eighth time to Taiwan for performing. However, as the saying goes, “Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs”. There were so many Chen Po's apprentices at Taiwan but no one dared to be his assistant except Li Tien-Lu. With his blind courage, he and this eighty-six-year-old master performed “Tian Bo Lou” together perfectly and Li Tien-Lu was praised highly by Chen Po. It then became a good anecdote at that time. That year, Li Tien-Lu was only twenty-four years old.

7, August in the same year, a chance for Li Tien-Lu to advance I Wan Jan to the higher class had come. Because of the great annual religious ceremony, it is the first time in Li Tien-Lu's life that he had to perform with other two troupes at the same place.

Besides, the two troupes, “Wan Ruo Jen”and “Hsiao His Yuan” were the most powerful ones in the Taipei Theater. Hence, in order to attract most attentions while performing, he came out an idea and borrowed movable stage scenery instantly from Taiwanese opera troupe, “Li Chuen Yuan” at Keelung for the drama《Li Shr-Min traveled the Hell》. This unexpected move and effect made him win the most audience's attention. Since then, I Wan Jan became one of the most powerful troupes at Taipei.

New element, new style.
In 1927, Jau Fu-Kuei from Shanghai led a troupe of Chinese opera performers to Taiwan. Li Tien-Lu was an eighteen-year-old boy then. It was his first time to watch Chinese opera and he was quickly enchanted by this amazing art. In his point of view, Chinese opera was complete, brief but powerful, and much more compact than Pei Kuan, which could make plots smoother.

Due to the advantages and his affection for Chinese opera, Li Tien-Lu tried to introduce individual use of percussion instruments and orchestras according to the story into the back stage, put Chinese opera-style asides into Pei Kuan-based drama, and used lots of Chinese opera-style songs.

Even, the facial paint, clothes and crests in the puppet theater were made after Chinese opera. So, people used to regard I Wan Jan as the sect of “Wai Jiang”, which means non-local drama, and Li Tien-Lu himself was called the founder of “Wai Jian Puppet Theater”.

The war ended the art.
In 1937, the war between China and Japan broke out. With the attempt to repress Taiwan people's national consciousness, the Japanese colonial government began to implement so-called “Kominka movement”.

The content of the Kominka movement includes canceling Chinese column in the papers, encouraging Taiwanese to have Japanese surname, forbidding worshiping Chinese gods, restraining performances outside, and so on. In view of this, Li Tien-Lu decided to stop performances of I Wan Jan for a while.

Leaving the stage, Li Tien-Lu invested himself in tea and oyster business for a short time but all ended in failure for his improper management. Then, by his friends, he served as a rehearsal director in Taiwanese opera troupes, “De Yue Club”, “Da Lung”, “Hung Yue”, “Dung Shing”, “Dung Ya”, and “Gau Sha” successively. Sometimes, he also played a role on stage.

In 1942, Japanese colonial government established “Taiwan Drama Association”, allowing only seven puppet troupes at Taiwan to perform Japanese-style puppetry in the theater. Li Tien-Lu was thirty-three years old then. He participated in Chen Shuei-Jing's “Shin Guo Feng Ren Shing Troupe” to play the Kominka drama and became a member of Anti-Anglo-America propaganda force to propagandize for Japanese government by puppetry back in Shihding Mountains. By doing this, Li Tien-Lu usually took opportunities to perform traditional dramas secretly. In this way, traditional dramas had its little space to survive in the turbulent period.

Rising from the ashes, I Wan Jan became the king of North Puppet Theater.
In 1945, the year that Taiwan regained its sovereignty, the silent gongs and drums in puppetry finally got their sound back. Puppet dramas troupes sprang up all over Taiwan like mushrooms.

Since Li Tien-Lu had lost most of his properties in war times, he stayed at his first apprentice, Jang Huo-Mu's troupe, “Jing Jung Chi” temporarily to wait for a chance to return to the spotlight. Next year, Li Tien-Lu bought properties in troupes “You Shan Jing”, “Shin Sai Yue”, “Shin Guo Feng” and “Wan Ruo Jen” one by one. I Wan Jan then came back to the stage.

By the overall disinhibition of outdoor performance in 1951, I Wan Jan like a tiger out of gate had founded the prosperous heyday of puppetry.

Since 1952, Li Tien-Lu had led I Wan Jan to win the champion of north area in the national puppet competition for the past twenty years and thus founded his esteemed status as the king of puppetry.

Taiwanese traditional art on international stage.
At the end of the 60s, due to the prosperity of new entertainment media like television and Jin Guang puppetry, traditional puppetry comparatively lost its competiveness and grew sluggishly. Yet the worst time was actually the best time.

It was then that Li Tien-Lu met the French professor Jacques Pimpanean who taught oriental language and drama in Université de Paris VII. Professor Jacques Pimpanean started to study Chinese drama since the 60s.

In 1972, in order to do the field research about puppetry, he left Hong Kong for Taiwan and found Li Tien-Lu for help. They not only became best friends ever but their friendship grew a hope for the future of traditional puppetry.

With Professor Jacques Pimpanean's introduction, Jean-Luc Penso and other two French girls, Claire Illouz and Catherine Larue came to Taiwan to learn the art from Li Tien-Lu. These French students started from the most basic skills.

From the gestures, basic movement, to drama telling and interpretation, they spent about three years intermittently at Taiwan to learn. Then, in 1978, three of them established Theatre du Petit Miroir in France and started a tour in France, Europe, to the world.

Theatre du Petit Miroir successfully let Taiwanese traditional puppet drama to be known to the world so did the master, Li Tien-Lu. All of a sudden, people from France, America, Japan, Korea and Australia came to Taiwan to learn the art. These foreign apprentices with their new learned skills back to their countries also founded their own troupes. Thus, more and more overseas invitations relived I Wan Jan, which once dismissed in 1978 and began its cultural journey ever since.

Sowing the seeds of the traditional art made it a forest in the future.
In July, 1984, with the effort of the principal, Lin Shiou-Di and teachers, Guo Ruei-Jen, Weng Jian, and Li Han-Duen, Banciao Jeu-Guang Elementary School became the land for I Wan Jan to pass traditional puppetry on.

The school decided to add puppet instruction to the group activities in extracurricular activities as soon as the beginning of the school, in September.

They selected 32 children in the fourth grade with interest to take the class. Li Tien-Lu, Chen Shi-Huang and Li Chuan-Tsan were in charge of the stage while backstage masters as Liou Jin-Sung, Li Shuen-Fa, Tsai Wen-Cheng and Yang Tsai-Ming joined the class on by one. In the following year, Jeu-Guang Elementary School officially founded Wei Wan Jan, which showed its blood from I Wan Jan.

The success of Jeu-Guang Elementary School once again attracted people's attentions to traditional puppetry and encouraged the rise of puppetry-learning movement in campus. The participation of Chinese Culture University, National Taiwan University, Hsin-Pu Junior High School, and Ping-Deng Elementary School made this art be known and loved by new generation.

The seeds those teachers sew then had become a forest now.

Many of members in I Wan Jan nowadays were those children in the puppetry-learning movement. Other traditional puppet troupes faced the problem of lack of successors while masters became older and older. I Wan Jan had already taken over by the third generation.

Hou Shiau-Shian’s movie opened a whole new page in life.
There was an anecdote about Master Li Tien-Lu. Back to 1977, one day, a fortune teller from Tauyuan Dashi told Li Chuan-Tsan (the second son of Li Tien-Lu) that because of one good deed his father had done when he was young, the older he was, the farther he would go.

When Li Tien-Lu went to France at his French apprentices' invitation, Li Chuan-Tsan thought that's it. However, he didn't think that by the director, Hou Shiau-Shian's unique insight, the name of Li Tien-Lu was going to become wildly known to non-puppetry fields around the world.

In 1986, the director, Hou Shiau-Shian went around to find a perfect person for the role, a grandfather in《Dust In The Wind》.

Through Chen Huai-En and Yang Li-Yin's recommendation, director Hou met Li Tien-Lu and then invited him to perform the grandfather in his movie. This childish old master thought that he had almost performed all kinds of drama at Taiwan, except movie. Thinking of this, he immediately said yes to the director and thus got into the world of movies.

Li Tien-Lu's natural acting was exactly what director Hou asked for. Since then, Master Li could never be absent from Hou Shiau-Shian's movie.

The movie,《The Puppet Master》 which was filmed based on the story of the young Li Tien-Lu came out in 1993. Since the film was nominated in Festival de Cannes, Li Tien-Lu had the chance to lead I Wan Jan to perform on stage.

When it was announced that 《The Puppet Master》won the Jury Award, the director Hou supported Li Tien-Lu with his hand to receive the award together.

On the stage, Li Tien-Lu with a pair of black sunglasses enunciated “Merci” (that is, thank you) in French. This interesting scene amused all the audience. This good new back to Taiwan caused another great sensation which he never expected.

The inauguration of the museum, the end of the old master's journey.
Late in Li Tien-Lu's life, he moved to Sanzhi with his second son, Li Chuan-Tsan and didn't show up in public activities as much as he used to be.

However, those properties that he spent most of his life with were still the most concerned thing in his heart. He always tried to find a perfect place to settle them.

By chance, a local landowner knew his aspiration and as good luck would have it, he had available houses for sale. In view of this, Li Chuan-Tsan bought the two houses in front of his own for building the Li Tien-Lu Hand Puppet Historical Museum.

The museum was started to build on 19, September in 1995 and was inaugurated on 31, December in 1996. Officially, it was named Li Tien-Lu Hand Puppet Historical Museum.

On the opening day, besides the president, Li Deng-Hei and many other important politicians, Li Tien-Lu's friends no matter they lived at Taiwan or in other countries all came to congratulate in person, which made the old Master's face glow with honor.

More importantly, the construction of Li Tien-Lu Hand Puppet Historical Museum signified a landmark on history of traditional puppetry which meant the new history was going to be created.

In July, 1998, on the eve before I Wan Jan leaving for Festival d' Avignon in France, Li Tien-Lu was sent to Taipei Veterans General Hospital and thus had to pass the visit. Yet, even though he was in a sickbed, he still concerned their performance far in France all the time.

On 13, August in the same year, since Li Tien-Lu became seriously ill, the families followed the traditional custom and took him home. With company of all his families and apprentices, the puppet master, Li Tien-Lu passed away by heart and lung failure at the age of eighty-nine.