Editing Shadow play (section)

====Taiwan====
The origins of [[Taiwan]]'s shadow puppetry can be traced to the [[Chaozhou|Chaochow]] school of shadow puppet theatre. Commonly known as leather monkey shows or leather shows, the shadow plays were popular in [[Tainan City|Tainan]], [[Kaohsiung]], and [[Pingtung City|Pingtung]] as early as the [[Qing dynasty]] (1644–1911 A.D.). Older puppeteers estimate that there were at least seventy shadow puppet troupes in the Kaohsiung area alone in the closing years of the Qing.<ref>{{cite news |title=Puppeteering |url=https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=20,29,35,45&post=25372 |access-date=28 December 2021 |work=Free China Journal |date=1 January 1986 |quote=The origins of Taiwan shadow puppetry trace back to the 17th or early 18th Centuries. When General Koxinga (1624–1662) expelled Dutch occupation forces from Taiwan, growing numbers of settlers crossed the Strait to the island. Among them were shadow puppeteers from Chaochow in Kwangtung Province. And in the interstices of time, their artform took root and gradually developed into an indispensable element of rural life in southern Taiwan. The early troupes of shadow puppeteers concentrated in the Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas. According to contemporary shadow-puppet master Chang Tien-pao, his grandfather once told him that in the waning years of the Ching Dynasty (1644–1911), there were forty-odd puppet troupes in Kangshan, and thirty-odd in the single village of Hsialiao, both in Kaohsiung County—an astounding popularity.}}</ref> Traditionally, the eight to twelve-inch puppet figures, and the stage scenery and props such as furniture, natural scenery, pagodas, halls, and plants, are all cut from leather. As shadow puppetry is based on light penetrating through a translucent sheet of cloth, the "shadows" are actually silhouettes seen by the audience in profile or face on. Taiwan's shadow plays are accompanied by Chaochow melodies which are often called "priest's melodies" owing to their similarity with the music used by Taoist priests at funerals. A large repertoire of some 300 scripts of the southern school of drama used in shadow puppetry and dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has been preserved in Taiwan and is considered to be a priceless cultural asset.