When Wang Haiyan was young, her favorite toys weren’t Barbie dolls. Instead, she started learning to make shadow puppets from her father at 13. Now 43, Wang has spent thirty years practicing and spreading the art.
Shadow puppetry is a form of theater that uses puppets made from leather(皮) or paper, accompanied by music and singing. Invented during the Western Han Dynasty, it tells us about folk stories and historical stories, passing down culture and customs over thousands of years.
Shadow puppetry is all about creating the puppets and performing with them. Wang’s hometown of Hua County, Shanxi is known as the birthplace of the folk art.
Puppet-makers must follow 24 steps to make the puppets, including washing the leather, carving(雕刻) and painting, according to Wang. Carving is the most difficult part.
“We have a special carving technique(技巧)—moving the leather under the knife,”Wang said. You have to hold the knife still in your right hand and only move the leather in your left hand.
It took Wang three years to master this skill. She used a brick(砖块)to make her left hand strong while practicing. It takes about 3,000 carves to make a shadow puppet. “The complicated(复杂的) steps make it hard to hand down the folk art,” she said.
But Wang has used some new ways to do so. In 2016, she made shadow puppets based on some cartoon series and gave a livestreaming performance(直播). She used colors like blue and purple that are hardly seen in shadow puppetry and added more sticks to the puppets to make the performance livelier.
【小题1】Translate the underlined words Shadow puppetry into Chinese.【小题2】When and where was shadow puppetry invented?
【小题3】How long did it take Wang to master the carving technique?
【小题4】According to Wang, why is it difficult to hand down shadow puppetry?
【小题5】What is the last paragraph about? (No more than ten words）
It’s about the new ways
