The 85-year-old Cheng is 180 centimeters tall with a sturdy frame and a ruddy face. You used to be able to find him at temples in his broad-rimmed rain hat imitating a neutered rooster: squatting with his legs spread, he would take little bird steps forward. The old ladies who came to pray couldn't help but break out laughing. This old geezer started studying puma when he was just seven or eight and didn't give it up until three years ago when hospitalized for heart disease and damaged knee caps.

If only it was gold:

Cheng is a symbol of puma in Taiwan. In step with the times, he led the professionalization of puma troupes. In part because the men left the farming villages to find work and in part because flexible female waists made for more pleasing performances, the troupes came to be made up largely of women. Then the performers started leaning over backwards to pick up money with their teeth and doing somersaults. And when the troupes added steps like the seven stars and the eight diagrams, which symbolize the driving away of demons, they started appearing not only at temples but at funerals as well.

In the 1970s, when folk customs were in vogue, Cheng became famous in the north as well as the south performing puma on such television shows as "The Prize of Five Lights' and "Songs of a Farming Village." His renown reached its zenith in 1987 when he won the second annual National Heritage Award for folk artists.

About this glory, Cheng says little, and mention of the Heritage prize brings a confused look to his face. With his daughter-in-law's explanation, it finally dawns on him what was meant. "You mean when I 'hit the jackpot'! At the time, everyone came to congratulate me for winning but I didn't know what I had won. It turned out to be something made out of bronze and shaped like a torch. If only it was gold. . . ."

Furtive auditors of a master's class:

As for his name, he guesses that when he was young his heavy build caused his uncles who carried him to say that he was as heavy as a big pile of cow dung. And so he acquired a name that definitely hasn't inspired the envy of the gods. After the retrocession of Taiwan, workers at the local administration office urged him to change it, but he said, "Why? If I change it, people will still call me cow dung." These recollections make him laugh so hard that tears come to his eyes. When asked how puma came to Taiwan from the mainland, on the other hand, he is clear and serious, talking straight on without pause.

"My puma was just picked up!" Cheng traces the origin of his puma to his grandfather's generation. Back then, as harvest approached, the farmers would take turns standing guard in the fields to prevent them from being robbed. One night, in a farming village near Hsiluo, they heard gongs and drums coming from a bamboo grove. There they discovered a master from the mainland teaching puma, and they watched and studied. At the next temple fair, they performed it better than their neighbors. Surprised to see that these secret auditors had worked at it harder than his actual students, the master taught them all he knew and passed along his troupe name: "Leyuantang."

Recounting the details of days gone by, Cheng is smiling like a sun as he sits in his wheel chair. This man who lived in a hospital for three years and almost died several times seems free from gloom.

Watching on video:

Just mentioning puma brightens his eyes--as if his ears hear the drums and gongs. He speaks of the stages of "feeding and washing the horse. " Disassembling the puma, placing it on a chair, putting fresh cut hay in a lead canister and stirring is called "feeding the horse." When "washing the horse" you need to lift up the water. Since it's heavy, you can rest the water bucket on your hips. After washing, you rest the horse's hooves on a knee cap and put on the horse shoes . . . . "This can go on for an hour; back in the good old days, puma could even compete with Chinese opera!" When getting to the good parts, Cheng tries to make a display with his hands and feet. It's only then he remembers that he can't move his two legs and he can't help but get a bit down. "My legs are no good; their shaking days are over. Sometimes I dream that I am shaking the horse vigorously."

Current troupes have dropped the parts he treasures most--"washing the horse and feeding the horse"--for being too time consuming. Cheng recalls that "I didn't perform puma to make money but because I loved doing the whole set of performances. Now that it is being done for money, the steps are being cut short."

At the end of the interview, Cheng's eldest daughter-in-law pulls out a video made by the National Chengchih University's China Border Area Research Institute ten years ago and complains, "None of his sons and grandsons are picking up his work. If you hadn't come to interview him, he wouldn't even want to talk about it. Perhaps the spirit of puma will leave with him."

In the video, Cheng exaggeratedly shakes his behind, showing the authentic flavor of his craft. In the future, one fears that a complete set of puma performances may be on view only via a VCR.