Shandong puppet drama dazzles foreign visitors

A Laixi puppet show is performed at the Culture and Tourism Cooperation Forum on Oct 16. [Photo/dzwww.com]

A puppet drama from Laixi, a county-level city in Qingdao, Shandong province, was staged during the Culture and Tourism Cooperation Forum, a sub-event for the Shandong International Friendship Cities Conference for Cooperation and Development, on Oct 16.

The classic piece entitled Hua Hao Yue Yuan, which means “blooming flowers and full moon”, a Chinese idiom to describe perfect married bliss, fuses several Chinese traditions, including Peking Opera, calligraphy, and dancing, offering foreign audiences an amazing time.

Laixi is one of the birthplaces of Chinese puppet arts. In recent years, its puppet dramas have been promoted at a number of international cultural events in the United States, Japan, Sweden, New Zealand, and Ukraine.

In addition to the puppet show, a wide range of Shandong cultural performances and specialties were also offered during the forum.

The forum’s slogan was “People-to-People Connectivity – Convergence of Culture and Tourism”, and it was divided into two parts: promotional activities for culture and tourism in Shandong and its sister cities, and presentations by Japan, France, Germany, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Micronesia, and Zambia.