Canadians all around the world know well to enjoy the summer, and one good way is by joining a party to celebrate Canada Day on July 1st. This year is very special, as the nation marks 150 years of Confederation.
“Canadians are generally patriotic, and it really shows on Canada Day,” said William Hetherington, a journalist working in Taiwan who hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Graduate student Yannis-Adam Allouache, who hails from the nation’s capital of Ottawa, told the Taipei Times that celebrating Canada in Taiwan is a little different from that of his hometown.
Photo courtesy of Canadian Chamber of Commerce
“Ottawa is always the center of the Canada celebration. From the daytime concert on parliament hill to the fireworks in the late evening, thousands of people of all ages take to the streets to celebrate, walk and partake in activities downtown,” he said.
That being said, Taipei’s Canada Day celebrations typically attract a big crowd.
For the past decade, Taiwanese have joined Canadians, along with people from other nationalities for the July 1st party in Taipei, which has become the largest foreign National Day celebration in Taiwan.
Photo courtesy of Canadian Chamber of Commerce
This year’s “Canada 150” event will have an immense program, with Canadian food and drinks, cultural activities and live music featuring Tony Taylor and the Rockits, The Canadian All-Stars, The Last Minute Band, Twangover and Mary Bites Kerri.
Prominent club DJ Marcus Aurelius, along with The Uppitys, NeKBRACE and Cross Cutz will heat up the dancing crowd at the Ford DJ Stage, while ICRT with DJ Joey will broadcast live starting in the evening.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated