Puppet Theatre Museum

I'm going to be honest with you: I saw "Puppet Theater Museum" on our itinerary and I'm pretty sure I yawned.

Oh, how wrong I was.

This was hands-down my favorite cultural experience so far (pardon the pun). Not only were the puppets themselves interesting, but the museum setup was flawless. It's in a converted house in a very old neighborhood, and the steep stairs led us to four floors full of well-thought out and well-executed displays, complete with DIY puppetry on each floor's landing (see Sheila making a string puppet dance in the photo to the left) and separate side exhibits on each. It was a toss-up whether I preferred the "Ugly Parlor," which poked fun at the hideous clown puppets, or the exhibit dealing with Communist influence on this traditional art form.

Yep. Communist puppets. Puppet oppression. I swear I'm not making this up.


Truly amazing as well was our guide, a young man named Eason. Eason's been studying puppetry for several years and truly has passion and talent one would admire in any artist. That his art is, well, Taiwanese puppets makes this extraordinary in my mind; after all, not only does he perform and work at the puppet theater museum, but he's also learning to make puppets in their shop, a craft he says will take many more years to master. I find it exciting that not only are these young people aspiring to be practitioners of a near-lost art, but they seem to be able to put food on the table as well.

I don't know. Maybe that's not extraordinary. I'm sure it happens all the time all over the world. But I sure didn't expect to see it in Taipei on a random rainy Thursday, a shiny little gem tucked away on a side street in the crumbly part of town.