The Taiwanese Opera Students Club of Xihu Elementary School was organized in 1997. Since then, this club is under the Ming Hwa Yuan’s instruction to develop new Taiwanese Opera actors. Each year, the club would select a female member to play the female lead, the Spider Goblin character. The 6th-grade Tsai Yi-shuan is the fifth Spider Goblin. She will share with us her experience in learning Taiwanese Opera.
She told us that she had been learning Taiwanese Opera for five years. She has to practice Monday through Friday; sometimes she even has to perform on holidays. It is not so easy to play Taiwanese Opera. Every actor has to accept demanding training and practice as often as they could. They have to repeatedly rehearsal their movement in order to perform on stage. Miss Lin’s harsh training would sometimes make them cry. The Ming Hwa Yuan has designed different scripts for the students club and different facial expressions for each character so that they will be able to capture the viewers’ attention. It has been great experience learning from the Ming Hwa Yuan.