TAIWANESE CONTEXT TO HERITAGE

Because Taiwan is not a member of the UN, it is not included into UNESCO’s membership either. Despite political barriers, Taiwan’s government has made efforts to protect and promote its tangible and intangible cultural and natural heritage to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage list. There are about 18 locations identified as potential world heritage sites. In addition, the CCA has been promoting potential recognition of 10 items of cultural heritage - including the Atayal origin myth, Bunun music pasibutbut, Beiguan music, Hand Puppetry, Taiwanese Opera, pasted-paper sculpture, the Amis harvest festival, the

Saisiyat ceremony in honour of a people who preceded them, and the worship of Wang Ye and Ma Zu - and naming those items to be contributions of intangible heritage to Taiwan’s cultural diversity (Tsai, 2010).

The Bureau of Cultural Heritage (BOCH), under the MOC, in recent years, has been working closely with local governments and private sector partners on heritage management to ensure the sustainability of cultural heritage. Until 2013, there are also nearly 40 cultural landscapes, 120 folk customs, and 180 traditional arts under government protection. The BOCH collaborates with universities as well to launch forums, lectures, workshops for cultural workers, publishes practical guides, and reviews the system of policy for cultural heritage preservation. According to UNESCO’s definition of intangible heritage, the BOCH

identifies Significant Traditional Arts (traditional arts and crafts, and performing arts), invites senior practitioners to induct training courses, and produces related documentary films. For instance, since 2009, the BOCH has designated 24 artists of Significant Traditional Arts (two of whom are now deceased) and has organised more than 20 four-year projects for senior artists in Traditional Arts to transmit their skills to young people (OA03, Female, Official Administrator; Her, 2013). Table 3.1 illustrates the designation of Significant Traditional Arts by the BOCH from 2009 to 2012.

Number Year of

Designation Name of Designation

Individual/Group

preserver City/County

1 2009 Beiguan Music The Lichun Yuan

Beiguan Troupe

Changhua County

2 2009 Hand Puppetry Shih-Huang Chen. Taipei City

3 2009 Taiwanese Opera Chiung-Chih Liao New Taipei

City

4 2009 Telling and Singing Hsiu-Ching Yang New Taipei

City

5 2009 Beiguan Drama The Hanyang Beiguan

Troupe Yilan County

6 2010 Nanguan Drama Su-Shia Lin Wu Taichung

City

7 2010 Lacquer Craft Ching-Shuang Wang Nantou

County

8 2010 Bamboo Weaving Craft Tu-Shan Huang Nantou

County

9 2010 Bunun Music

Pasibutbut

Nantou County Bunun Cultural Association

Nantou County

10 2010 Eight Notes of Hakka

Music

Miao-Li Chen Family Beiguan Eight Notes Group

Miaoli County

11 2011 Nanguan Music Hung-Ming Chang Tainan City

12 2011 Hand Puppetry Chun-Hsiung Huang Yunlin

County

13 2011 Hakka Folk Song Pi-Hsia Lai Taoyuan

County

14 2011 Paiwan Mouth and

Nose Pipes Shui-Neng Hsieh

Pingtung County

15 2011 Paiwan Tribe’s Mouth

and Nose Pipes Kun-Chung Hsu

Pingtung County

16 2011 Comic Dialogue

Crosstalk Jau-Nan Wu Taipei City

17 2011 Tin Craft Wan-Neng Chen Changhua

County

18 2011 Dressing the Buddha Chih-Hui Shih Changhua

County

19 2011 Traditional

Woodcarving Chen-Yang Shih

Changhua County 20 2012 Traditional Architectural Coloured Drawing Shou-Yi Chen

(Deceased) Tainan City

21 2012 Atayal Narrative Song Ming-Fu Lin Taoyuan

County

22 2012 Manjhou Ballad Jih-Kuei Chang Pingtung

County

23 2012 Hengchun Ballad Ting-Shuen Chu

(Deceased)

Pingtung County

24 2012 Yilan Local Gua-ah Zhuang San Xin

Liang-le Opera Troupe

New Taipei City

After the KMT restrictions on popular religious festivals, some festivals were revived and have become symbols of Taiwaneseness (Bosco, 1994: 396). Hand Puppetry relates to those festivals closely and plays a significant role as well as a symbol of Taiwaneseness (Katz et al., 2003: 104). As mentioned above, the Taiwanisation movement advocates the awareness and promotion of the Taiwanese language, popular culture, and folk religion. “Cultures are most fully expressed in and made conscious of themselves in their ritual and theatrical performances” (Turner, 1980; Cheng, 2005: 10). Ritual and theatre performances can help to unite people in the community (Geertz, 1973).

Among the theatrical performances designated as Significant Traditional Arts (see Table 3.1), Taiwanese Opera and Hand Puppetry use ‘Taiwanese’, the ‘mother tongue’ of the majority of people in Taiwan (Chang, 1997: 111), as the main language of performances. Taiwanese Opera is one of manifestations of Taiwan’s cultural identity, while Hand Puppetry is considered to be representative of traditional performing arts in Taiwan. Both of are symbols of Taiwanese culture and identify with other strong expressions of Taiwanese culture, namely Taiwanese lyrics and music (Greenfeld, 1992; Katz et al., 2003: 101-105). Therefore, this study is locates Taiwanese Opera and Hand Puppetry as part of Taiwan’s intangible heritage in the performing arts.

3.5 CONCLUSION

In international society, Taiwan is in a difficult position because of China’s intervention, which results in Taiwan unable to participate in the UN, its affiliate organisations and other governmental organisations. Taiwan’s identity has been influenced by political circumstances. Taiwan was under the KMT rule after its retreat from mainland China in 1949. During that time, Chinese ideology was overwhelmingly promoted in Taiwanese society. More and more people, in particular, pre-college students, regarded themselves as ‘Chinese’. With the Taiwanisation and democratisation movements, the conception of a Taiwanese identity has been rapidly promoted, especially during the DPP administration from 2000 to 2008. Since then, there have been a large number of people in Taiwan identifying themselves as ‘Taiwanese’.

Taiwan’s intangible heritage includes traditional arts and crafts, the performing arts, folk

customs and related cultural artefacts, and cultural heritage preservation. Traditional arts include traditional arts and crafts, and the performing arts, among others. The procedure of designating and registering intangible heritage under Traditional Arts is to investigate, review and make a decision to register, declare publicly, and submit the registration to the central competent authority to be added to the list for registration as a Traditional Art by county or

city governments. Thereafter, the central competent authority will choose the Significant Traditional Arts for registration from the submitted list.

Although Taiwan is not a member of UNESCO, Taiwan’s government is devoted to safeguard its heritage. Among those registered items of cultural heritage, the performances of Taiwanese Opera and Hand Puppetry are linked to the Taiwanese language and to festivals. Therefore, they are considered to be a symbol of Taiwaneseness and Taiwan’s identity and can be considered to be Taiwan’s intangible heritage. The next chapter will demonstrate methods and research techniques (e.g. interviews, observations) to approach the research questions and the data analysis.

CHAPTER 4