If you ask several different residents of Kaohsiung county where their cultural center is, you're likely to get several different answers. Some will say it's in the southern part of the county in Fengshan city, where the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall is located. Others will say it's some forty kilometers northeast in the town of Meinung, and still others will insist on Kangshan, about twenty-five kilometers north of Fengshan. In fact, all three sites are part of the Kaohsiung County Cultural Center, making this the most spread out of all twenty centers on the island. And whereas the result might have been a dilution of energy and resources, all three bases instead complement each other in making a significant contribution to this largely rural area of southern Taiwan.
Early risers take advantage of the outdoor plaza at the Fengshan facility for a variety of exercise classes. These women work hard to perfect their ballroom dancing techniques.
At the Sun Yat-sen Hall in Fengshan, a city of about 300,000 residents, the day kicks off as early as 5:00, when groups of sword dancers, tai chi practitioners, folk dancers, and other small exercise parties gather in the front square to practice. By 8:00, when these early risers are packing up their things to leave, the library patrons begin arriving. Adults head for the periodicals room to peruse the selection of newspapers and magazines, while kids clamber into the children's reading room to gather up books and sit on chairs or on the shiny wood floor.
At mid-morning, the art lovers make their entrance and begin milling through the four-room, 4,000-square-foot exhibition space. This summer, the display featured leather shadow puppets and antique puppet-show scripts, and attracted nearly thirty thousand visitors during its one-month run. Along with the exhibition, youngsters had a chance to carve their own puppets from a piece of stiff cowhide or to try their hand at manipulating their favorite puppet characters.
By the afternoon, the 600-seat performance hall is buzzing with activity. Volunteers of the Sunflower Drama Group are adjusting the stage lights and preparing the sets, while reporters and photographers get ready for a sneak preview of tomorrow night's show. Their production, which deals with the daily problems of the retarded, has been touring the island all summer to raise funds for the Association for the Physically and Mentally Handicapped.
This exhibition of Cochin ware, a type of colorful temple ceramics, attracted both old and young. The center's customer-oriented approach includes keeping close track of attendance and viewer response to each event.
While the Fengshan hall bustles with activity, more cultural activities are under way a fifty-minute drive away in Meinung township. The town is known for its large population of Hakka, a minority Han Chinese group with its own distinct traditions. The Meinung Countryside Gallery, located on the second floor of the three-story Farmers' Association office, is featuring an exhibition of sculptures by Chan Liu-miao (詹鏐淼), who is known across the island for transforming strips of leather into highly detailed figurines. The gallery, which opened in 1991, is one of the highlights of the area, along with the nearby memorial museum dedicated to the well-known Taiwanese writer Chung Li-ho (鍾理和) and a butterfly park several kilometers away. “Although the gallery is pretty isolated, we've never been without viewers,” says exhibition assistant Fu Hsiu-ying (傅秀英). “We're not usually packed, but we've cultivated some regulars, mostly from the townships in the area.” On the third floor of the building, a small video library also attracts a regular crowd of young viewers with its scheduled cartoon showings. “We never lack the sound of kids' laughter here in the summertime,” Fu says.
Just a few years ago, the center headquarters in Kangshan were poorly maintained and surrounded by high, intimidating walls. Now all that has changed. The performance hall, shown here, is one of three main buildings.
Traveling from Meinung to Kangshan requires another fifty-minute drive back to the southwest on narrow country roads that zigzag though rice paddies. This township of 90,000 boasts the largest facility of all, where the cultural center headquarters are located. On this typical summer weekday, dozens of adults and youngsters stream in and out of the library all day. In the same main building, an elderly man and a crowd of primary school students are browsing through a display of traditional ceramic temple decorations in one of the two exhibition rooms. A father and son, barely dry from their swimming class in the public pool behind the facility, are at the information center checking out the week's schedule for the 800-seat performance hall.
But the center of attraction in Kangshan is the four-story Shadow Puppet Museum, an art form that first came to the area about one hundred years ago. Located next to the main building of the center, the museum opened last year. The collection includes the handcrafted leather figures used in shadow puppetry, musical instruments, and old storage trunks that troupes once used to take their shows on the road. A special document room features traditional scripts as well as publications and research papers on shadow puppetry. “We have about four thousand items from all over the world,” says senior museum staffer Chang Yue-ying (張月英). She adds that the staff is constantly scouting for more artifacts. “We just bought all the remains from a local puppet troupe that closed down,” she says.
Keeping cool as well as cultured---Two swimming pools complete the Kangshan facility. Like much of the center, they are privately maintained, part of an attempt to keep government costs and staffing to a minimum.
But the primary focus of the museum, Chang says, is not simply to expand its collection. “Our ultimate goal,” she says, “is to keep the art form alive and to pass it on to the next generation.” The museum regularly gives presentations and classes at area schools, and this past spring about fifteen primary school teachers took part in a puppetry course that included lessons in both puppetmaking and performing. Every month, the facility also sponsors two professional performances, which usually attract a good-sized crowd. Each show is presented by one of the island's five existing shadow puppet troupes, all of which have close ties with the center. The facility also helps to sponsor tours locally and overseas. This September, it organized a series of performances and workshops in Paris for the widely respected Fu Hsing Ko Puppetry Troupe.
Running such a spread-out facility is a special challenge for 36-year-old director Huang Kuo-ming (黃國銘), who took over the center in 1992. But other staff members say he assumes the responsibility with an inspiring hands-on approach. Every day he stops off first at the Fengshan facility before arriving for work in Kangshan, and periodically visits the Meinung gallery as well. “He drives around the three bases by himself and just has a boxed take-out meal for lunch,” says staffer Huang Chao-ching (黃兆慶). “He personally demonstrates to the new inexperienced staff how to make things work.” The staff also lauds Huang for his emphasis on teamwork. “He'll even join us and help prepare for major events and work until midnight,” Huang Chao-ching says. “He's extremely energetic and expects a lot from us.”
Not long ago, many residents were not even aware the Kaohsiung center existed. Nowadays, they eagerly join in a wide range of activities, including classes such as this one in flower arranging.
Director Huang's energetic leadership has helped transform the center from an ineffective, largely ignored facility into a highlight of the area. When he took office three years ago, the center headquarters were isolated from the rest of the city by high, intimidating walls, the administrative building suffered from poor maintenance and was showing signs of decay, and the organization of the puppet museum was far behind schedule. His first step was to knock down the walls and create an open, inviting atmosphere with clearly marked signs. He then had the facilities thoroughly cleaned and repaired and put a major effort into expanding and upgrading the museum collection. In Fengshan, he had the performing hall repaired, enlarged the stage to accommodate more professional performance groups, and installed more sophisticated lighting equipment. At the Meinung facility, he helped to organize art classes and other programs for area residents.
The Shadow Puppet Museum in Kangshan includes a collection of 4,000 items and offers classes and performances. Says senior staffer Chang Yue-ying, “Our ultimate goal is to keep the art form alive and pass it on to the next generation.”
The center has also seen a tremendous increase in community participation. Staff member Huang Chao-ching says that when he first began working at the Kangshan headquarters four years ago, he met many people who were not even aware that the facility existed. Today, he estimates that about 80 percent of residents in the area are well-acquainted with the center. In the past, the center had to offer free gifts to attract people to its performances and activities. “Now we can sell tickets and still fill 80 percent of the theater,” he says. “Like most people here, I think it's all because of how our director runs this place.”
Director Huang approaches the center as if it were a private business. Unlike most center directors, he does not complain of a lack of government funds and staff. He simply figures out a way around the problem. “We don't really need that big of a staff, because we don't have to do everything ourselves,” director Huang says. “We can privatize part of the center's work. And if we lack money, we can raise some from the private sector.” For example, the center has entrusted cleaning and maintenance of the facilities to a private cleaning company, and it hires private organizations to plan and carry out many performances and activities. The center has also succeeded in attracting private sponsors. For this July's 1995 Taipei International Festival of Puppet Theater, which included performances in Kaohsiung and several other cities, the center found a department store to pay the costs of printing posters and brochures.
The center also keeps close tabs on the attitudes of residents toward its offerings. “Our mission is to serve the public of a particular area; so I carefully evaluate the results of every performance and activity,” Huang says. “To make the whole thing work, we have to be very customer-oriented---that means being sensitive enough to recognize changes in taste and in the demands of the customers.” Huang insists that the center keep records of how many people attend each activity and conduct surveys after each program. These are taken verbally or in the form of written questionnaires.
Director Huang Kuo-ming--”We can't do a good job offering activities from just one place. We need to take the initiative in reaching out.”
But one of Huang's most landed accomplishments has been to turn the center's biggest potential flaw---its three-base arrangement---into a distinct advantage. In fact, he believes this unique arrangement has been the key to the center's success. “With a population of 1.2 million spread out over twenty-seven cities, towns, and townships, we can't expect all these people to come to where we are,” he says. “We can't do a good job offering activities from just one place.” Huang also applies this philosophy to the individual bases, making sure that each facility has a busy schedule of outreach programs away from the center. The puppet museum, for example, frequently sponsors performances, classes, and contests at temples and schools. And the Sun Yat-sen Hall focuses on promoting children's theater by sending its own troupe, the Little Potato Drama Group, on tours to kindergartens in the area. Huang sees his approach to cultural administration in typical entrepreneurial fashion. “A cultural center in a rural area should function like a door-to-door salesman,” he says. “We can't just open a boutique like you would in a big metropolis. We need to take the initiative in reaching out.”