The Tourism Administration yesterday in a ceremony in the Grand Hotel Taipei unveiled the designs of the main lantern and handheld lanterns of this year’s Taiwan Lantern Festival.
The annual festival is to open in Tainan on Feb. 24 and end on March 10.
The 22m-high main lantern, named Dragon Comes to Taiwan (龍來台灣), features a golden dragon made of carbon 60 and recycled ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) film, the administration said.
Photo: Taipei Times
EVA film is an encapsulation material used in solar panels.
The main lantern’s design was inspired by the flying dragons wrapping around the two stone pillars at the entrance to Tainan Grand Matzu Temple’s (台南大天后宮) court, JFA Artwork Project Design Co project director Camay Peng (彭力真)said.
The festival is also to give away small handheld lanterns to its visitors. The small lanterns are called Small Dragon Bags (小龍包), pronounced same as steamed dumplings in Mandarin.
Photo: CNA
Artist Lin Chia-wei (林佳葦), who designed Small Dragon Bags, said that the lanterns feature the head of a more friendly-looking dragon, which can be opened at the back for children to store small toys.
People can carry them like a handbag or hang them on their necks, Lin said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said this would be the second time that Tainan hosted the Taiwan Lantern Festival, which was held in the city in 2008.
“The festival this year is significant as it is held for the first time following the merger of the Tainan City and county. It is also held after the Tourism Bureau was upgraded to the Tourism Administration in September last year,” Wang told the participants of the ceremony.
“The main lantern’s name, Dragon Comes to Taiwan, sounds like ‘All comes to Taiwan’ in Hoklo [commonly known as Taiwanese]. We hope the festival would attract visitors from different places, making it an international tourism event,” Wang said.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said Tainan is to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the city’s establishment in 1624, as he urged people to join the festival.
“We were not around when the city had its 300th anniversary, and we are not going to be around when it celebrates the 500th anniversary. So we should not miss this milestone,” Huang said.
Visitors in Tainan can see various types of orchids in the Taiwan International Orchid Show during the day and watch lanterns at the festival at night, Huang said.
The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival (鹽水蜂炮) is to be held on Feb. 23 and Feb. 24 at Wu Temple (武廟) in the city’s Yenshui District (鹽水), he added.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS