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Taiwanese boar lights up Chiayi's lantern festival

The centerpiece of this year's Chiayi Lantern Festival celebrations shines brightly yesterday. Conforming to the spirit of environmental awareness, more than 90 percent of the lantern's materials are recyclable. PHOTO: TSAI TSUNG-HSUN, TAIPEI TIMES

A theme lantern featuring a Taiwanese boar will be lit up in Chiayi County's Taipao City (太保市) tonight, where the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival is being held this year.

Mounted upon a steel plate, the theme lantern is meant to symbolize a boar standing on Jhuluo Mountain (諸羅山) looking proudly down upon the Chiayi Plain.

The lantern also reflects the hope for a prosperous year and highlights the virtues of courtesy, sincerity and natural spirit, according to the Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

Meanwhile, water dances and a firework display illuminated the sky above Kaohsiung City's Love River last night as it unveiled this year's Kaohsiung Lantern Festival.

Featuring the title "Eternal Light," Kaohsiung's festivities this year are aimed at highlighting the city's urban characteristics -- the harbor, the Love River and the mountains, said Kaohsiung's Deputy Mayor Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文隆).

Unlike lantern festivals in other parts of the nation, the city's main lantern is not in the form of a pig, it features a Makatao chief -- an Aboriginal tribe that live mostly in Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties -- in the center of the lantern.

The twelve animals symbolizing the Twelve Branches used to designate lunar years surround the Makatao chief, forming a sundial lantern that represents the 12 events in the upcoming 2009 Kaohsiung World Games.

The nine-day festival will also feature performances by groups from six of Kaohsiung's sister cities, including Portland, Macon, San Antonio and Colorado Springs in the US, Hachioji in Japan and Busan in South Korea, City officials said.

Like the festivities in Chiayi, the events in Kaohsiung will continue until March 11.
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