It seems there is a festival for everything, no matter how niche.
Windmills, along with a contingent of pinwheels, have helped Cingjing Windmill Festival (清境風車節) in Nantou County become a thriving tourist attraction.
Since its launch in 2007, the showcase has displayed impressive staying power, restaging itself for two months every year.
Photo courtesy of Cingjing Farm
According to organizers, 250,000 visitors descended on Cingjing Farm (清境農場) last year to admire the armies of pinwheels and windmills, with blades whirring in unison.
Wind speed increases with altitude, and at 2,100m above sea level, Cingjing Farm has a brisk and constant breeze.
“Due to that wind, back in the 1980s and 1990s the youth corps liked to come here and camp out, fold pinwheels and fly their kites,” said Lin Chun-hsiung (林俊雄), a section chief at Cingjing Farm.
Photo courtesy of Mao Yung-cheng
“That is the tradition we are trying to sustain.”
Starting tomorrow, the Cingjing Windmill Festival is showing 15,000 pinwheels and windmills artfully arranged in zones like Joy and Love, which is “particularly suited for couples,” Lin said.
But you do not need to be a fan of windmills to appreciate the event.
Over the years, the Cingjing Windmill Festival has scaled out into a collection of colorful odds and ends only tangentially linked to its theme.
“A local tea association is going to host a tea party on the prairie, and there is a live show to go with it. Visitors can also sit back and look at the windmills,” Lin said.
“It will be a mix of eastern and western sensibilities. They are serving high-mountain tea and cupcakes.”
The festival program also includes entertainment by local ensembles on weekends, as well as tours of the nearby orchard, vegetable garden and sheep ranch.
Tomorrow resident farmers will mark the festival’s opening day with a sheep shearing, after which the Taichung City Youth Symphony Orchestra (台中市青少年交響樂團) will play an outdoor concert.
New to this year is outdoor star-gazing — professionally guided gazing with the aid of a high-powered telescope, Lin said.
Guided tours by the Family Star Association (台灣親子觀星會) and other astronomy societies are offered tomorrow, July 19, Aug. 2 and Aug. 16 from 7:30 pm to 8:30pm and 8:30pm and 9:30pm, at NT$150 per person.
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
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
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built