While some set off rice bombs in reaction to changes in the agricultural sector since entry into the WTO, Changhua county has decided to meet those changes with a festival.
Tomorrow and Sunday, "Good Mountains, Good Water, Good Fun -- Changhua County Leisure Farm Festival" is scheduled be held at San Chun Lao Shu Leisure Farm (
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHANGHUA COUNTY AGRICULTURAL BUREAU
The festival "will let all of Taiwan see and experience what Changhua's leisure farms have to offer" said Hsu Hsiu-fang (
Since Taiwan joined the WTO in 2002, farms around the country have faced the problem of how to make money despite tough foreign competition. Many farms have incorporated tourism, allowing visitors to see and experience farm life through activities such as traditional tea ceremonies and fruit-picking.
Changhua, "the county of agriculture," has followed in the footsteps of counties such as Nantou, were the transformation to agricultural tourism began in the mid-1990s. The festival is a culmination of the county's efforts to develop and promote agricultural tourism.
According to Hsu, the festival is especially oriented around families with kids and elementary school classes. Adults will be able to relive the charms of childhood while youngsters will get a taste of farm life in a relaxed atmosphere.
The weekend's schedule is packed with group activities, such as tours and games with prizes, as well as do-it-yourself (DIY) hands-on activities, including plant cultivation and arts and crafts such as weaving, hat-making and fan-painting. The DIY activities are not free, but they are specially discounted for the festival.
Event notes:
What: Changhua County Leisure Farm Festival (好山好水好好玩∼彰化縣休閒農漁園區嘉年華)
When: Tomorrow and Sunday, from 10am to 5pm
Where: San Chun Lao Shu Leisure Farm, Huatan township, Changchun Villa, Youche Alley, No. 271 (彰化縣花壇鄉長春村油車巷271號)
Ticket: Fees for the DIY activities range from NT$30 to NT$100
Telephone: For schedules and information, call 02-2394-7676 or 04-722-2151 ext. 0662
The US war on Iran has illuminated the deep interdependence of Asia on flows of oil and related items as raw materials that become the basis of modern human civilization. Australians and New Zealanders had a wake up call. The crisis also emphasizes how the Philippines is a swatch of islands linked by jet fuel. These revelations have deep implications for an invasion of Taiwan. Much of the commentary on the Taiwan scenario has looked at the disruptions to world trade, which will be in the trillions. However, the Iran war offers additional specific lessons for a Taiwan scenario. An insightful
The problem with Marx’s famous remark that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, the second time as farce, is that the first time is usually farce as well. This week Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made a pilgrimage to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “to confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob” with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. The visit was an instant international media hit, with major media reporting almost entirely shorn of context. “Taiwan’s main opposition leader landed in China Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at cross-strait ‘peace’”, crowed Agence-France Presse (AFP) from Shanghai. Rare!
April 6 to April 13 Few expected a Japanese manga adaptation featuring four tall, long-haired heartthrobs and a plucky heroine to transform Taiwan’s television industry. But Meteor Garden (流星花園) took the nation by storm after premiering on April 12, 2001, single-handedly creating the “idol drama” (偶像劇) craze that captivated young viewers across Asia. The show was so successful that Japan produced its own remake in 2005, followed by South Korea, China and Thailand. Other channels quickly followed suit, with more than 50 such shows appearing over the following two years. Departing from the melodramatic
Sunflower movement superstar Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) once quipped that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could nominate a watermelon to run for Tainan mayor and win. Conversely, the DPP could run a living saint for mayor in Taipei and still lose. In 2022, the DPP ran with the closest thing to a living saint they could find: former Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中). During the pandemic, his polling was astronomically high, with the approval of his performance reaching as high as 91 percent in one TVBS poll. He was such a phenomenon that people printed out pop-up cartoon
RSS