An Emmy Award-winning TV program filmed in Tainan is expected to capture the new charm of the old city from a US perspective.
The travel series Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi, from US public broadcaster Public Broadcasting Service, has 10 episodes per season.
It has won the Emmy Award four times.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan Bureau of Tourism
Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi boasts an average audience of more than 2 million per episode from the US and Canada. It airs on multiple streaming TV platforms, such as Amazon Prime, Tubi and in-flight entertainment systems, the Tainan Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The show was filmed at notable tourist sites in Tainan, including Anping Old Fort (安平古堡), Anping Matsu Temple (安平天后宮) and Ten Drum Culture Village (十鼓文創園區), to showcase the richness of local history and cultures, it said.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) had visited the film crew and given them Taiwanese culinary delights, such as pineapple cakes, pomeloes, coffee and dried mango from Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井), to show hospitality.
The filming was a great opportunity to bring Tainan to the world as well as a cultural exchange, he said.
Program host Mickela Mallozzi and her team probed the city’s cultural heritage with passion and creativity, showing the unique charm of Tainan’s traditional activities, such as drum performances, yi-ko, or Taiwanese festival floats, and parade formations, Huang said.
Additionally, Tourism Bureau Director-General Lin Kuo-hua (林國華) yesterday said the show demonstrated the exuberance of traditional culture in Tainan.
The filming team recorded the process of crafting drumming instruments at a village and the gourmet food served on Bao’an Road, while the host experienced the face painting of godly generals and learned their performance strides, he said.
The city government expects the collaboration to raise Tainan’s international visibility and spur more travelers from the US and the rest of the world to make the city one of their top destinations, Lin said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.