The fourth annual Tung Blossom Hakka Festival kicked off yesterday with a concert, drum show and a dancing performance in celebration of Hakka culture, held at a mountain resort of Miaoli County.
The ceremony, held at the Westlake Resortopia in Miaoli County, marked the beginning of a month-long festival sponsored by the Council of Hakka Affairs to promote Hakka culture. The festival's symbol is the tung blossom, a flower that blooms from mid-April to late May in central and northern Taiwan.
Acting chairman of the Council of Hakka Affairs Lee Yung-de (李永得) promised this year's festival to be bigger and better than ever.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"Within four years, the Tung Blossom Festival has become one of the most successful cultural events in Taiwan. With new activities, festival train services and special tour guides for English and Japanese-speaking travelers, we hope to transform the Hakka festival into an international cultural event," Lee said yesterday.
Senior presidential adviser and former Hakka council chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) attended the ceremony to invite the public to experience the rich Hakka culture through the festival.
"The Tung flower represents the purity of the Hakka people. I am here to invite all the people in Taiwan to visit the Hakka communities, listen to the beautiful Hakka dialect, and enjoy the amazing scenery of the white Tung flowers," said Yeh.
To express the Hakka community's gratitude to the mountains, Lee and Yeh joined with representatives of major Hakka communities to stage a special ritual to honor mountain deities. Items offered at the altar to deities included traditional Hakka rice cakes, ginger, brown sugar, tea leaves, green onions, mochi and sweet potatoes, representing foods that come from the mountains.
Pop-rock band MayDay performed popular songs from their albums and invited the young crowd to sing along. Hakka performing arts groups, including Nanzhung Dragon Dance Group, Wayao Valley 3 band with lead singer Lin Sheng-hsiang (林生祥) -- a vanguard of the movement for the revival of Hakka culture through its music -- also spread their love of Hakka culture during the ceremony.
Fu Shin Elementary School of Hsinchu County performed the theme song for this year's festival, Tung Flowers, written by the Hakka folk song singer-songwriter Chen Yung-tao (陳永淘).
Over 106 Hakka communities from Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung and Nantou counties joined this year's festival with more than 600 cultural events that were designed to boost tourism in Hakka communities.
The council will provide a "Tung Blossom Festival Train" every weekend between Taipei and Changhua County in hopes of easing the burden of traffic.
"Taiwan's railway administration has partnered with the council this year. With better transportation services, we believe the festival will attract more local visitors, as well as international friends," Taiwan Railway Administration Director-General Hsu Ta-wen (
Ceramic workshops in Maioli County welcomes visitors with tung flower products and pottery activities. During the month-long festival, the public is invited to visit the 21 "tung blossom sightseeing paths" that have been created in the six counties hosting the festival. The tung trees often grow close to Hakka communities, and used to be an important source of income.
Last year's festival attracted 2.7 million visitors and generated NT$500 million in revenue. This time around, the council invited travel agencies from Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Japan to visit the festival, expecting them to boost the local tourism.
For more details on festival activities and sightseeing paths, visit the council's website at www.hakka.gov.tw. For train service inquiry, call 02-2381-5226, ext. 2538.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS