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.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and