VIEW THIS PAGE Like many cities, towns and villages in Taiwan, Yehliu (野柳) is getting ready to celebrate Lantern Festival (元宵節) on Monday with concerts, fireworks and a luminous display of lanterns. But this scenic north coast village near Keelung (基隆) — best known for its striking rock formations — celebrates with an unusual tradition that includes a cold swim in the harbor and a walk over embers.
The ceremony takes place on Monday morning and is the feature event of the Cleansing of the Harbor Festival (台北縣野柳神明淨港文化祭), which is being sponsored jointly by the Taipei County Government (台北縣政府), Wanli Township (萬里鄉) and Yehliu’s Baoan Temple (保安宮).
As the festival’s Web site explains, the ceremony represents an appeal to the gods for “tranquility” and “safety” at the harbor neighboring Baoan Temple.
According to local legend, more than a century ago, a shipload of merchants perished when their boat sank after hitting a reef as it approached the shore. Since then, villagers have worshipped a number of deities, among them Sagely King Kai Zhang (開漳聖王), to provide protection around the harbor.
In one of the main rituals, devotees chosen by Baoan Temple — mostly local youths — take the gods on a swim, so to speak, to “cleanse” the harbor waters.
Statues of several deities are placed in seven or eight palanquins, each made of a chair affixed to two bamboo poles. Holding the palanquins by the poles, some 20 to 30 devotees make a running charge off the harbor dock and swim to another port roughly 100m away.
After their swim, they move onto the “firewalking” ritual, walking barefoot over a bed of smoldering embers made from wood chips and popping firecrackers while carrying the palanquins.
The ceremony is considered a baptism of sorts for the New Year. As the festival’s Web site puts it, by “entering the water and emerging from the fire,” the gods ensure safe passage for boats, as well as a plentiful catch for fishermen in the coming year.
Festival spokesperson Stacy Tseng (曾芃茵) said last year’s ceremony attracted some 1,000 people, but organizers are expecting this number to increase to over 5,000 from this Saturday to Monday. The Taipei County Government, which is sponsoring the festival for the first time, has planned more tourism related activities and events.
Saturday’s events include a public “plunge” from the harbor for those who want to experience the cleansing ritual for themselves. Registration is closed as of press time, but there will be other events, including a seafood buffet lunch special for NT$200 per person and a cooking demonstration in the late afternoon. On Sunday a lantern-lighting ceremony is scheduled to take place at 6:20pm, followed by a Japanese dance performance and a set by taike (台客) rockers the Clippers (夾子大樂隊).
All events take place near Baoan Temple. If you want to catch the official ceremony on Monday, plan for an early day, as the events start at 8:30am.VIEW THIS PAGE
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not