Tourism-oriented festivals are never in short supply in Taiwan. The Sakura festival takes place in February in Nantou County and March on Alishan. Hualien County hosts its lotus festival in May and Tainan and Taoyuan counties host theirs in June. Aboriginal harvest celebrations take place in July and September, and the black tuna festival is currently underway in Pingtung. For the most part, these festivals are designed to promote local tourism and are an excuse to eat a lot.
Shihmen township has seen an opportunity to follow suit, making a bit of money and attracting publicity by hosting the Shihmen International Kite Festival, which will enter its third year when it opens on Sept. 28. The organizers hope that there will be something more than food to attract people.
The festival this year will be on a bigger scale than last year, incorporating ecological guided tours and kite-making workshops as well as promotions of local specialties. It is part of the Council of Cultural Affairs' Integrated Community Development project, which, in Shihmen township, is aimed at promoting kite-making and kite-flying as one of Taiwan's cultural activities.
Discovering tourism
Located on the outskirts of the greater Taipei area, Shihmen is a fishing village which, like many rural villages, has become depopulated due to lack of economic opportunities. Tourism has been limited, with the obvious activity of swimming restricted by strong coastal currents in the area.
What resources there are have not, until very recently, been developed. At present, one out of every three elementary school students cannot afford a school lunch and high school kids spend their weekends either helping their parents sell snacks or fishing.
For these people, spending money to buy kites is too much of a luxury. The creation of a local kite-flying culture therefore comes as something of a surprise and is due largely to the work of Hsu Chu-kuan (
Initially, Hsu persuaded locals to participate using financial incentives. The festival organizers assisted villagers in making kite kits, which they can sell to schools or tourists. "Although it's not much money, there's something about kite-flying that villagers see as instantly making money for them," Hsu said. So far the idea has been well received. Hsu's next step is to persuade them to make painted kites, "so that the kites have their own lives," he said.
Shihmen is far from the only place in Taiwan that people fly kites, Hsu said, but he wants to add a humanistic value to Shihmen's kite industry. "Japan's Sinshuu apple gained its status from local craftsmen's exquisite designs for apple candies. Without them, the apples do not show the spirit of the place," Hsu said.
All these efforts are trying "to offer something characteristic of Shihmen, in addition to seafood, to make tourists spend a few more hours there before moving on to other destinations. That's where the future of Shihmen's economy lies," Wu said.
Entering the competition
Although Taiwan has the coastal and seasonal wind required for kite flying, the activity has not been popular here. The historical reason is that the activity, which was popular in the Ching dynasty, was banned during the Japanese occupation of the island from 1895 to 1945 for fear that civilians might use kites to send signals.
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