Between March and July 2024, the 65-year-old Chengdu Shadow Puppet Troupe completed a 14-city tour across Argentina, Chile, and Peru with its new production The Bamboo Phoenix. Instead of traditional ox-hide figures, the troupe carved 22 puppets entirely from dyed Sichuan bamboo, showcasing joints that flex like feathered wings. Local media coverage reached an estimated 11 million viewers; Argentine daily La Nación ran a front-page photo captioned, "El bambú chino nos cuenta historias milenarias."
The cultural impact translated into hard sales. By August 2024, Argentina's largest toy retailer, Juguetes García, reported a 260 % increase in bamboo marionette sales, all sourced from Chengdu workshops. Chilean customs figures show bamboo toy imports from China rose from 18 tonnes in 2023 to 67 tonnes in 2024, a 272 % surge. Santiago parents told local radio that they chose the toys "because each puppet carries a Chinese folk tale we can retell at bedtime." Thus, a traveling performance whose primary goal was cultural exchange effectively became a live infomercial for Chinese bamboo craftsmanship across an entire continent.
