It turns out that Indonesia is not the only country who has traditional puppet culture. China also has this kind of folk art which is known as Fujian Puppet. Fujian puppet came from Fujian Province at southern region land of China. In 2012, Fujian Puppet is appointed as world’s intangible art and cultural heritage by UNESCO.
In order to preserve and introduce Fujian Puppet, Govenment of China has built several training center since 2006 to improve skill of puppeteers. The training center also gives funds for artist who works in the field of Fujian Puppet art.
To popularize this art in Indonesia, China National Arts Fund Administration International Training for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pasific held Fujian Puppet show at Faculty of Humanities (FIB) of Universitas Indonesia (UI) on Tuesday, May 12th 2015. “Puppet in China and Indonesia has quite similar functions. Both of them give role model values for society,” said Dean of FIB UI, Dr. Adrian L. G. Waworuntu, M.A in his opening speech.
In the event, Quanzhou Marrionette Drama, Jinjiang Hand Puppet Art Heritage Protection Centre dan Zhangzhou Puppetry Tropue performed alternately. One of the interesting play that was performed was about a grand mother who dreams to be young again. Puppeteers successfully got the audience amaze by their fingers hand skill which made those female puppets looked alive. “They are a skillful artists who had trained for ten years and got various national as well as international appreciations,” said one of Fujian delegation in his explanation after the show.
This notion was approved by Muhammad Firdaus, student of FIB UI who attended the show. In his opinion, the most interesting thing from the show was the shrewdness of puppeteers on controling the puppet. “Fujian Puppet has feature on the detail. Puppeteers shrewdness on playing the rope could make the puppet looked alive. The puppet could hold the cup, hold the sword then put it back to its case, that was so cool,” said him.
The using of rope as puppet controller is also the difference between Indonesia Puppet and Fujian Puppet. While Indonesia Puppet use stick to control the puppet, Fujian Puppet use rope that is connected to the puppet. There are about 30 rope that are used to control the whole body of Fujian Puppet.
Before visited UI, Fujian Puppet group had performed at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah and Universitas Padjadjaran. UI became the last destination of the group before returned to China.
