Cheng Rom-shing (鄭榮興) has Hakka music and drama in his blood. The forty-year-old music scholar grew up in a small town in predominantly Hakka Miaoli county, surrounded by the group's traditional performing arts. His grandfather, Chen Ching-sung (陳慶松), was the third generation leader of the Miaoli Chen Family Pa-yin Troupe. Cheng proudly claims that his grandfather could play four trumpet-like so-na horns at once, a feat he often displayed at local festivals, weddings, and other celebrations. "He amazed everyone who saw him perform," he says. Meanwhile, Cheng's grandmother, Cheng Mei-mei (鄭美妹), was among the first generation of Hakka opera actresses (the theater form was traditionally limited to men). She also founded the Ching Mei Yuan Hakka Drama Troupe of Miaoli.
At the age of five, Cheng joined his grandfather's music troupe and began learning the unique pa-yin, or "eight sounds," a music form which incorporates various Chinese regional music styles picked up by the Hakka during their long history of migration. The name refers to eight categories of musical instrument based on the materials used—metal, bamboo, stone, leather, wood, earth, gourd, and silk.
When Cheng turned seven, he joined his grandmother's drama troupe as a percussionist. The troupe specialized in Hakka "tea-picking drama," a series of musicals set among farming communities. These dramas featured a trio of main characters: a man, a woman, and a comic third figure who were known for their humorous bantering. Costumes were traditionally simpler than those of Peking opera, and the music incorporated Hakka folk songs sung by farmers in the tea fields.
The Ching Mei Yuan Hakka Drama Troupe performed more than twenty days a month, but Cheng says he didn't mind balancing rehearsals and shows with schoolwork. "At that time, many people started learning these performing arts as children," Cheng says. "I wasn't the only kid in the group. We didn't know anything about culture, but we had great fun performing."
Cheng continued to perform through junior high and high school, joining three Hakka drama troupes before beginning college. But during the 1960s, he says, opportunities to perform Hakka music and drama dwindled rapidly. The main reason was a large-scale government campaign at the time that urged people not to spend so much money on elaborate weddings, funerals, and festivals. Since Hakka performers depended on these ceremonies for their livelihood, many suddenly had to find other ways of earning a living. In the 1970s, they suffered further in the face of the growing popularity of television and movies as chief entertainment forms.
Unlike most Hakka musicians and actors, Cheng has been able to maintain a close connection with Hakka folk arts. He studied Western music theory and composition at Soochow University, Chinese music composition and the hu-chin (a Chinese stringed instrument) at the Chinese Culture University, then received a master's degree in Chinese folk music at National Taiwan Normal University. After graduation, he began teaching Chinese music at Taipei universities and joined several government-funded folk arts groups that traveled throughout Asia, Europe, and North and South America. In 1987, he received a scholarship from the French government to study for a Ph.D. in Chinese folk music at a branch of the University of Paris.
Traveling and studying abroad, Cheng says, gave him a chance to see how other countries preserve their ethnic music and theater. "For someone who had spent most of his time studying traditional performing arts, it was very inspiring," Cheng says. He realized that, while other nationalities treasure their folk arts, "we were just letting ours fade away."
Even before finishing school, Cheng was working to keep Hakka performing arts alive. After his grandfather passed away in 1984, Cheng became leader of the Chen Family Pa-yin Troupe. When his grandmother died three years later, he took over the drama troupe, renaming it the Rom-shing Hakka Drama Troupe. With both troupes, one of Cheng's first goals was to build up an audience outside Hakka communities. So, in 1987, Miaoli's Hakka performers toured Taipei and other urban centers around the island.
The performances attracted crowds filling 80 percent of the seats, and the music troupe won the Ministry of Education's annual Art Heritage Award in 1987 for outstanding traditional folk arts performers. The drama troupe received the award in 1992.
Despite the recognition, the groups face severe financial difficulties. Depending solely on ticket sales, they barely make ends meet. All members of the music group maintain full-time jobs and thus only practice once or twice before each performance. The situation is more serious for the drama troupe, since the performances require considerable preparation. With less than twenty actors and actresses, the troupe produces ten shows a month throughout northwestern Taiwan. Members handle everything from costuming and set design to publicity and administrative work. Each member receives NT$2,000 (US$74) per show.
Still, as two of the largest and most established groups, Cheng's Hakka troupes are better off than most. He estimates that there are less than one hundred professional Hakka actors and actresses scattered islandwide, and that most of them are in their forties and fifties. Hakka musicians, he believes, are generally even older. And although some young people are taking Hakka performing arts classes, most are too busy with academic studies or work to dedicate themselves to the art as students could in the past.
But Cheng believes the problem is more deeply rooted than a simple lack of time or interest among youth. "Why should young people spend their precious youth learning something that will not help them earn a living?" Cheng asks. "And even if some were willing to do so, how could we be so hard-hearted as to let them?"
Can Hakka performing arts survive? In recent years, the public and the government have started paying more attention to Taiwan's traditional performing arts, and interest has grown in minority cultures. But Cheng feels that most private and government efforts are focused on promoting rather than preserving folk arts. To him, cultural preservation and promotion are entirely different things. "The purpose of promotion is to make people interested in something," Cheng says. "But the purpose of preservation is to allow talented people to receive intensive training so that they can learn every detail about an art form such as Hakka drama, Peking opera, or Taiwanese opera, and then pass it to the next generation."
Ultimately, Cheng thinks the government should be responsible for preserving the traditional arts. "It would be nice to let the private sector do this, but they generally don't have the money," Cheng says. "The government should provide opportunities to perform, and set up schools and university departments to train people."
The government has a long history of preserving Peking opera through its support of two academies and several opera troupes. For years, Peking opera was the only traditional drama form to be strongly maintained. But with growing interest in Taiwanese opera, several large private professional troupes began in the mid-1980s, and this year, Fu Hsing Dramatic Arts Academy will offer a full department in Taiwanese opera to go along with its Peking opera studies.
To date, no such intensive programs are offered for Hakka performing arts. The only training available are the short-term after-hours classes and training camps sponsored by private Hakka groups. With no opportunities to train new artists, Cheng has become frustrated. Although his drama and music troupes have built audiences, this will not be enough to continue the art forms. "Promoting the arts should be a way to find talented young people who are interested in continuing them," he says. "Then we should give them years of intensive training."
"Traditional performing arts take generations to create and usually reflect the unique lifestyle or philosophy of a specific people," Cheng adds. "But I don't know how long I'll be able to help preserve the Hakka arts. If no young actors or actresses join us, my drama troupe will be forced to close down in five years."