Hongjiang cane puppet integrates the ethnic customs of Huaihua into the wood carving clay sculpture, so that the puppet has both artistic value and cultural symbolic significance. (Photo by Zhu Jianqin)

The Qingyuanfeng warehouse in Hongjiang Ancient Mall is now the Puppet Theater Society of Hongjiang Ancient Mall

Teacher Ding Hongyan is teaching children to dance puppets

Teacher Yang Huisheng is carving a "palm" mold for a puppeteer

Teacher Yang Huisheng and his puppeteer "Wang Erxiao"

Original puppet show "Seeds of Dreams"

Teacher Zhang Xiling and her classmates in the theater are practicing puppet show

Tibetan Dance "Kelsang La"

Puppet show characters of the Three Kingdoms Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei.

A burden and an umbrella, came to Hongjiang to be the boss.

Photo/text: Huaihua Daily all-media reporter Pan Yu correspondent Ding Hongyan

木偶藝術是中華民族的瑰寶，承載著兩千多年的文明記憶，作為人類非物質文化遺產的重要組成部分，它以獨特的藝術形態訴說著民族的審美與智慧。這種被稱為“傀儡戲”的古老表演形式，集音樂、美術、舞蹈、文學於一體，雖以無表情的木偶為媒介，卻能通過操縱者的指尖功夫，讓木胎泥塑的角色在舞臺上演繹出人間百態。

Tracing the origin of puppet show, as early as the Han Dynasty documents, there is a record of "puppet show", the ancients used puppets as "spokespersons", "singing and dancing stories", so that the three-foot stage became a miniature mirror of history and life. After thousands of years of evolution, puppet shows in various places have formed distinctive regional characteristics: the delicacy of Fujian string puppets, the agility of Guangdong cane puppets, and the ruggedness of Shaanxi shadow puppets...... In Hunan, puppet art is famous for its "steady and accurate, delicate and expressive performances, exquisite and vivid shapes", especially the Hongjiang cane-head puppets, which integrate the ethnic customs of Xiangxi into the wood carving clay sculptures, so that the puppets have both artistic value and cultural symbolic significance.

In the studio of Hongjiang Ancient Mall, the wooden frame of the septuagenarian craftsman Yang Huisheng is filled with half-formed puppet blanks. The moist clay carcass is tinged with beige moisture, and the eyes that have not yet been eyed seem to hide thousands of stories, just waiting for the craftsman to give a look with a paintbrush - some are about to paint the curved eyebrows, and the hairpin is made of Miao silver sideburns; Some are ready to smear their faces with ochre red and wear robes embroidered by the Dong people. These unfinished works are a dialogue between traditional craftsmanship and modern aesthetics: Yang Huisheng abandons the rigidity of traditional wood carving puppets, inherits the clay sculpture techniques of his master, makes the facial lines of the puppets more tense, and cooperates with movable mechanisms, so that the "wooden beauty" can blink her eyes, bow her head, flick her sleeves, and have a charm with a smile on her cheeks.

Every Thursday afternoon, the classrooms of Xingfu Road Primary School will resound with the cheerful sound of silk and bamboo. More than a dozen children gathered around their desks, vying to hold the jujube longitudinal pole that was taller than themselves. Eight-year-old Lingling tiptoed, clutching the long pole of the "Danjiao" puppet with both hands, although the wooden pole was dangling crookedly in her hands, the water sleeves embroidered with pink peaches were thrown by her - the silk swept over the pigtails, drawing a half-arc in the sunlight penetrating through the window, and the skirt of the puppet also swirled, as if there was really an ancient little lady stepping on broken steps and dancing lightly in time. Yang Huisheng stood aside, his calloused hands gently holding the child's wrists, and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes contained the light of fifty years ago. He still remembers that when he was 19 years old, when he first saw the master in the provincial troupe pinching out a puppet head that would "laugh" with clay, and the moment his palm touched the wet clay, he was destined to bond with this craft.

From green silk to white hair, Yang Huisheng has been with puppet theater for 53 years. He improved the joint mechanism of the puppet, so that the "fisherman" could throw the rod to fish, and the "Miao girl" could dance the silver silk; He integrated the adze-carving process of Miao silver jewelry and the geometric pattern of Dong embroidery into puppet clothing, giving new vitality to the traditional shape. The children dubbed their own and performed the anti-Japanese puppet show "Wang Erxiao", each image was vividly interpreted by the children, so that the audience was completely immersed in the story, and the "puppet unity" perfectly expressed the tenacious and brave quality and delicate emotional changes of the two children through body movements, which deeply moved all the audience.

Today, the inheritance of Hongjiang cane puppet show has long surpassed personal perseverance. Yang Huisheng's studio has become an intangible cultural heritage classroom, and the puppet blanks on the wooden frame have been replaced one after another, but what remains unchanged is the temperature when the clay meets the fingertips. As twilight enters the classroom, the last rays of sunlight sweep across the puppet's unpainted cheeks, as if waiting for the next brush to give it a soul – just as this thousand-year-old skill is forever alive in the palms of generations of craftsmen. Although the puppet does not speak, it carefully engraves the context of the Chinese nation into the annual ring of time between the grip and push.