(waves crashing) Narrator: It's called one of Asia's Little Dragons.

A 20th-century phenomena, this is Taiwan.

In celebration of the second 100 anniversary  of the first Chinese immigrant to Hawaiʻi, Taiwan is sharing its cultural richness with us  through many exchanges.

These are only a few.

(natural sound) Narrator: It's Friday night, and the holiday is beginning.

Loud recorded music announces the  arrival of the evening's entertainment to the neighborhood.

Puppet master Xu Wang has brought  his famous troop to this side street in Taipei.

When darkness descends, the show will begin.

(natural sound) Narrator: Chinese puppets have entertained audiences since the 10th century.

During the Song period, puppets were used as replacements for humans forced to accompany the  dead to their graves.

The shamans would manipulate the figures to take on the soul of the dead.

The  onlookers constituted the first puppet audience.

(instrumental music) Narrator: One becomes a puppeteer after  a long apprenticeship.

The Chinese traditional way of teaching the arts.

Hsu Wang: I learned puppetry from my father, who had studied under some  masters in Fukien Province.

I learned it from my father in Amoy.

Our little West Garden  troupe has been in existence for 76 years.

Narrator: Fukien Province, across the straits from Taiwan,  has been long regarded as an important center for puppetry.

The earliest puppet stages were made  of elaborately carved wood and large enough for only two puppeteers.

(puppet show) Narrator: The Fukienese puppetry is most famous  for the portrayal of the martial arts.

The action is fast paced and realistic.

(puppet show) Narrator: There's a similarity to Chinese opera, although puppet performances are  historically older, they share the same stories, music and the tradition of taking the  entertainment to the people in the street.

(puppet show) Narrator: It's another day, and Xu Wang, once again, is entertaining a young audience.

This time he's in  Honolulu, and the children are from local schools.

(puppet show) And see in this glass cases, they have some other ones that are very  old.

These puppets in the glass cases.

(natural sound) Narrator: The handcrafted puppets are as varied as any human actor  with articulated hands that can open a fan.

(puppet show) Narrator: And what would a Chinese  performance be without a dragon?

(puppet show) Narrator: For years, American cities have connected with  foreign cities through the Sister Cities Program, which provides an opportunity for like type towns  to trade culture, economics and dignitaries.

Honolulu has a sister city in Taiwan,  Kaohsiung, ever since September 10, 1962.

(speaking in Chinese) Narrator: Like Honolulu, Kaohsiung is a seaport.

(natural sound) Narrator: The port is the world's second largest dry dock  and fifth largest container port.

(natural sound) Narrator: Located about four hours south of Taipei, Kaohsiung is the country's second largest city,  with more than one and a half million inhabitants.

Mayor Frank Fasi: Like Oʻahu, Taiwan is a semi-tropical island that once depended on sugar.

But now  Taiwan, the Republic of China, as it's known by so many people, is one of the world's most successful  economies.

Taiwan's success is based on hard work, strong family values and education, and I think  we can learn an awful lot from the Taiwanese.

Su Nan-Cheng: I have a lot of admiration for Honolulu, whose reputation is well established all over the  world.

Anybody who has traveled to Honolulu will never forget its aloha, no matter in which part  of the world he resides.

We are looking forward to not only frequent exchange in trade and economy,  but also a close association in terms of tourism.

Mayor Frank Fasi: We appreciate very much the mayor's close support of our Chinatown redevelopment.

They sent us two  beautiful marble lions, and they are something.

They'll be put up at the entrance to the Chinatown  Gateway project.

The Lions actually were sent to symbolize the strength of Honolulu's ties to  Kaohsiung and our close contact and affection for the people that live there and for the Republic  of China.

And we look forward to even closer relations, much closer relations, with Kaohsiung,  their officials and the people in the future.

Narrator: Because of its location and its ethnic population, Hawaiʻi has long been refuge for  Asian revolutionaries.

One such political visitor was no stranger to Hawaiʻi.

Dr.

Sun Yat-sen was  educated in Honolulu from 1879 to 1883.

At 13, he left his village in China to come to Hawaiʻi  with his brother, Ahmi, who ran a general store in ʻEwa.

After several months of working for his  brother Sun Yat-sen, enrolled in the Iolani School located on Bates Street in Nuʻuanu.

This small  school was run by the Anglican Church in Honolulu.

He spoke no English when he entered his classes,  but three years later, at his graduation in 1882, Sun Yat-sen had received a special award from  King Kalākaua for his scholarship.

Later, he said, This is my Hawaiʻi.

Here I was brought  up and educated.

And it was here that I came to know what modern, civilized  governments are like and what they mean.

Narrator: Sun returned to Hawaiʻi several times as an adult.

By this time, he had graduated from medical  school in Hong Kong, was baptized a Christian, and was protesting the rule of the Manchus in  his homeland.

The Qing Dynasty was the last to rule China, but the rulers were not Chinese, but  Manchus from the North.

The dynasty was corrupt and inept.

The people of the Middle Kingdom  were poor, illiterate and abused.

It was time for reform.

In Hawaiʻi, Sun found progressive  Chinese Hawaiians, and together in 1894 they organized sun's first society, called Prosper  China Society.

By 1903 Dr.

Sun advocated nothing less than the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty and  the introduction of a republican government.

He traveled frequently raising money for the cause.

The financial and moral support of the overseas Chinese helped lead to the revolution of 1911.

Their dream was a better China.

Hon Chew Hee is a Hawaiʻi artist of great merit.

Born in Hawaiʻi 82  years ago, he was the son of an educated man from China.

When Hee's father Jackson, he arrived  here, he immediately found lucrative work.

Hon Chew Hee: When he first came, he found out all the Chinese working here, 90%  could not even write Chinese.

So, they asked him, can you write he said, oh, yes, I graduated.

He  said, will you write me a letter and two bits, you know, 25 and give my father?

My  father make 3, 2, 3 dollars a day.

Well, those days, $1 is one day.

Now they  earn.

He earned three, four dollars.

Narrator: Jackson Hee became fluent in Hawaiian and later a translator for Queen Liliʻuokalani.

After  the Queen's arrest, he took his family to Maui, where he worked with Sun Yat-Sen.

Hon Chew Hee  was four years old when he met the revolutionary.

Hon Chew Hee: Dr.

Sun Yat-sen was here one time at Chinese newspaper.

My father was the treasurer,  so he took me there one day and pointed to me that some sort of old man go there and said,  gung gung.

And then I went out.

They said, gung gung.

Then, and he touched my head and and  that's the only memory I had of Dr.

Sun Yat-sen.

Narrator: In 1912 Chock Chong was a druggist's assistant in Hilo.

An avid photographer, Chong's  images constitute a wonderful collection of life in Hilo.

When the Republic was declared  in China, the local Chinese residents in Hilo celebrated with a magnificent New Year's  parade.

The local newspaper reported the event.

The Hilo band headed the procession, but labored  under a disadvantage, as it had to compete with the Chinese orchestra in the other sections of  the parade.

Then came boys and girls down to the smallest tots, really the most effective  feature.

The most spectacular feature was contributed by a dozen or so of decorated autos  bearing Chinese Republic banners, and one of them a good picture of Dr.

Sun.

Chock Chong  had gotten up a good giant firecracker stunt.

Narrator: This particular firecracker contains no explosives other than the best of  radical rhetoric and capitalist advertising.

Long live the new Chong Hua Republic.

The Manchus  were blown up, but Chock Chong, home photographer is on earth at Hilo and is prepared to do  the best photographic work in town for you, Narrator: One of the granddaughters of Sun Yat-sen lives  in Honolulu and is devoted to perpetuating the memory of her grandfather.

Lily Sun Wong  is the daughter of Sun Yat-sen's only son.

Lily Sun Wong: The more I study that my grandfather, the more it inspired me.

He is really a great,  I mean, national hero for Chinese people, and he's the pride for Chinese people.

Because  in his lifetime, he he is, he was so selfless.

He dedicated all his life to people, to promote the  democracy, to promote the welfare for the people.

(piano playing) Narrator: As Wong speaks, it becomes clear why she's  taken by examples of her grandfather's life.

Lily Sun Wong: In order to avoid the Civil War for the unification and progress of the country,  he resigned the presidency to Yuan Shikai, and then when he was sick, he still went to Beijing  to carry on the peace negotiation.

So, he died in Beijing.

Even in his deathbed, he cried on,  I think about 14, 15 times say, peace struggle, save China.

I mean in Chinese where it's only  seven characters.

Heping, fēn tou, jiu zhōngguo.

Narrator: Because her grandfather had died before her birth.

Her father, Sun Fo passed  down to Wong some grandfatherly instructions.

Lily Sun Wong: Actually, it's very simple in Chinese where he says, du youyong shū ō. That means to study  the useful books.

And then yang hai lan chi.

That means to cultivate and broaden our mind.

That  means to learn the wisdom and compassion.

Narrator: On December 7, 1945, the Republic of China was leaving.

Defeated by the  Chinese communists, the President of the Republic, Chiang Kai-shek, brought to Taiwan the  writings and philosophies of his teacher, Sun Yat-sen.

These became the cornerstone  for contemporary Taiwan.

Here today in the President's secluded summer home, are  priceless writings of the founder Sun Yat-sen the originals of the Three Principles  of the People and the five-fold constitution, writings which began in part in Honolulu years  before in a small school on Bates Street.

Narrator: Three marble murals adorn this public library in  Mililani.

Made from Taiwanese marble, they are the work of Hon Chew Hee.

In 1985, he was  commissioned by the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts to create a public art piece for  the new building.

He chose a Hawaiian motif to be made out of marble.

He selected Taiwan because  of his frequent visits there as an art teacher.

Hon Chew Hee: And I find the place very much like the land when I  was raised in China, and people are very friendly and smiling at me.

The State  Foundation wanted me to do a marble mural.

I thought Taiwan, that's the best  place to do marble so I went there.

(instrumental music) Narrator: Taiwanese marble comes from the mountains near Gwolian.

In the heart of this area is the Taroko Gorge.

(instrumental music) Narrator: The gorge is on the west side of  Taiwan.

On the cross-island highway, the road cuts through cliffs, making it the  major engineering feat of the country.

The mountains here are rich with marble.

However,  today, the gorge is protected from mining as a national park.

(instrumental music) Narrator: The marble factories dominate Gwolian creating tourist  items and panels for architects and artists.

(natural sound) Narrator: In Taiwan, Hee went to work selecting marble slabs  and overseeing the cutting of the panels.

Hon Chew Hee: The people want, can they do realistic?

So photographically done.

I didn't  like that.

I like very rough texture, similar like the tissue marks show here and there.

So, I  explained them.

They finally understand my way.

Narrator: He and his assistant, Robert Tom, had prepared a template  in Hawaiʻi for the pattern.

The large design was divided into smaller  units of 18 inches by 24 inches.

Hon Chew Hee: Robert Tom, my worker, he couldn't speak a word to them, but he can point it out and show my drawing.

That's the way it should be.

So, they went on.

Narrator: Later it would be reconstructed into the final mural on site in Mililani.

The mural depicts  the abundance of Hawaiian life and is created from the richness of Taiwan, another reminder of the  cultural wealth shared between the two islands.

Kuo Hsiao-Chung: And open the door, because before the Chinese  door, different American door.

Too heavy.

Oh, today the weather is wonderful.

I can go  out, take play.

That's good idea, okay, if for the Chinese, take a look the shoes.

How to take it.

You take a watch, you know.

(natural sound) Kuo Hsiao-Chung: Everybody say why you're too slow.

On the stage, you know, even  like this the audience, oh, too easy, easy.

Kuo Hsiao-Chung: Baba, my father, you know, he's very like Chinese opera,  and he helped me.

He tried, he designed, you know, before I didn't know Chinese opera,  you know.

I was very younger, seven years old, and I go to the Chinese opera school, you know,  so far, 30 years ago, you know, long time.

(speaking Chinese) Kuo Hsiao-Chung: It was a very strict school.

The training lasted from early morning  until 10:30 in the evening.

The only day off were Sunday.

All the time during the week was  devoted to training.

The physical requirements were tough and the instructors were strict.

We  took a lot of beatings.

As a matter of fact, all this has not been as easy as it might look  today.

My whole life has been devoted to my work.

The Ya Yen Ensemble was started after my 20  years as a student.

Since then, another 10 years has passed.

I've been with the troupe all those  years.

I can say I am married to Chinese opera.

Narrator: Today she's in Honolulu for her performance, Of the Gall of the  Princess.

Her ensemble will demonstrate the many changes Miss Kuo is making to the venerable art  of Chinese opera.

To many Westerners untrained in the fine art of Chinese opera, these differences  will be subtle, but for those who are well versed, they are radical.

The Chinese opera  has long emphasized elaborate costumes, makeup and hairstyles.

Because of its origin as a  traveling theater, sets and lighting design have been minimal.

However, Miss Kuo has changed  much of that.

Flat wash of general lighting has been replaced now by lighting and special  effects found in western theater.

The costumes and hairstyles have been simplified.

A symphony  has been added to the classical opera orchestra.

(Chinese opera performance) Kuo Hsiao-Chung: I always thinking in a Chinese  opera and the west opera.

(speaking in Chinese) Kuo Hsiao-Chung: Although they represent very different historical or ethnic heritages, the  underlying emotions are the same.

For instance, any story necessarily contains conflicts  involving, say, power or love.

It's all a matter of how such human aspects are to  be externalized with some sort of veracity.

(Chinese opera performance) Narrator: As we participate in cultural exchanges, we  recognize that beyond the languages and the customs, the politics and the geography, we  are more similar than not.

As we transcend those things that make us different, we  discover those things that make us human.

(instrumental music)