Lantern festival launches with exhibits nationwide

The nation's tourism bureau announced yesterday a series of events to be held nationwide to celebrate the Lantern Festival this year.

The festival begins this Sunday and will continue for a week.

Lantern will be held in Taipei City, Taipei County, Chiayi County, Tainan County, Kaohsiung City and Taitung County.

While exhibit features different highlights, lanterns in the shape of pigs will be distributed to the public at each event to mark the Year of the Pig.

The 2007 Taiwan Lantern Festival, hosted by the Tourism Bureau and Chiayi County, will exhibit several enormous lanterns, including a 13m tall boar, a 21m tall Alishan juniper and a 2m tall money box. Organizers will also invite local and Japanese choreographers to orchestrate performances.

Kaohsiung's Lantern Festival will promote the city as the host of the 2009 World Games. It will feature lanterns designed to reflect various athletic themes related to the World Games. The festival will also invite representatives from Kaohsiung's sister cities in the US, Japan and Korea to jointly participate in the events.

The beehive firecrackers in Yenshui (鹽水) remain one of the highlights of the Lantern Festival. This year, most of the beehive firecrackers will be set off at 9:09pm on Sunday.

In addition, a 13km long string of firecrackers titled "Legend of the Fire Dragon" will be set off.

Pingsi in Taipei County is well known for its annual release of "flying lanterns" -- lanterns that float in the air like hot-air balloons. The event will be held today and Sunday.

Taipei's Lantern Festival began last Saturday with the launch of the Latin Tunnel. This year's mascot is a pig called "Zhucolate" (朱古力), who will be represented with a lantern. The chubby Zhucolate will also be the main character in a play on Sunday.