Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Shadow play" in English language version.
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.
