Chinese Shadow Puppetry’s Changing Apprentice System: Questions of Continuance and a Survey of Remaining Shadow Puppet Practitioners in Mainland China, 2008–2013

Chinese shadow puppetry’s fading master-apprentice system poses urgent questions of how best to ensure the inherited practice is passed to the next generation. With profiles of current Chinese shadow puppet practitioners, this article surveys the spectrum of survival scenarios. Questions of continuance will depend on increased awareness of the form’s tenuous future and increased efficacy of cultural heritage preservation programs, such as UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage project.