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Tainan readies for festival

"Apart from the traditional ceremony and other activities, we also invited artists ... to perform traditional ceremonies."

Shu Tien-tsai, Tainan City Mayor

The Tainan International Chihsi Art Festival will be held from Aug. 6 to Aug. 11 around the Confucius Temple Historical Area and other historic sites in Tainan, giving tourists from all over the world the opportunity to experience authentic and traditional Taiwanese customs.

The Chihsi -- July 7 on the lunar calendar -- falls on Aug. 11 this year.

It is a traditional celebration ceremony for teenagers turning 16, which signifies that they are no longer children but have become adults who must take responsibility for their own lives.

According to custom, 16-year-olds must crawl under the altar of Chi Niang Ma (七娘媽) -- the goddess who blesses and protects children in Chinese folklore and whose birthday falls on July 7 of the lunar calendar -- three times with all their relatives looking on.

The ritual can be traced back to a family in which all members worked as stevedores in Tainan, which used to be a prosperous harbor during the Ming and Ching dynasties.

In those times, due to a lack of modernized mechanical facilities, stevedores -- who would usually inherit the position from their fathers and pass it on to their children -- played an indispensable role.

However, employees younger than 16 were regarded as child laborers and were paid only half the usual wages. Upon their 16th birthdays they formally became stevedores and started receiving full salaries.

"Apart from the traditional ceremony and other activities, we also invited artists from Russia, Korea, Poland, Japan and the US to perform some of their own traditional ceremonies at the festival," Tainan City Mayor Shu Tien-tsai (許添財) said at a press conference yesterday.

A special exhibition will be housed in the Patriotic Women Museum (愛國婦人館), illustrating the legend of Chishi and the history of Chinese sacrifices.

A shuttle bus service will be provided during the six-day festival to connect Tainan's historic sites, Hsu said, in the hope that the service will help attract more people to the festival.
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