Starting next Friday, Tainan City will host the 10-day International Chihsi Arts Festival alongside the "coming-of-sixteen" ceremony -- a tradition unique to Tainan -- to be performed at various temples which will in the city on Aug. 18.
Chihsi (
legend
PHOTO: HSU MIN-JUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Legend has it that once a cowherder married a weaver girl from Heaven and had children.
But a goddess was upset that a fairy maiden had married a human and recalled the weaver girl.
The couple, standing on each side of the Milky Way, could only meet each other on Chihsi when magpies started forming a bridge between them.
In the modern age, Chihsi is celebrated as Lovers' Day in Taiwan.
However, Chihsi has another special meaning for the people of Tainan -- it's the traditional day for the "coming-of-sixteen" ceremony, Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (
"Coming-of-sixteen" (zuo shiliusui,
"Most people have only heard half of the Chihsi story, but we know the full story in Tainan," he said. "After the weaver girl was recalled to Heaven, six other fairy maidens -- sisters of the weaver girl -- came down to take care of her children; therefore, children who become adults would show their appreciation to the qiniangma (seven fairy maidens, 七娘媽)."
A table with offerings arranged on it was set up at the news conference to demonstrate the coming-of-age rituals.
offerings
All the offerings -- including tea, pastries, fruits and noodles -- came in sevens, "so that the qiniangma may each get a share," Hsu Keng-hsiu (許耿修), director-general of the Tainan City Cultural Affairs Bureau, told reporters.
"The makeup and perfumes on the table are to tell the girls that they may start using those items now that they are adults. The betel nuts and cigarettes serve the same purpose for the boys," he said.
teenagers
Two teenagers crawled out from under the table, which "symbolizes that they've come out of the qiniangma's palace," he said.
"During the Qing Dynasty, workers at Tainan's Wutiao Harbor (五條港) were paid as child laborers if they were under 16, but would be paid full wages when they turned 16. That's why we celebrate the coming-of-sixteen," Hsu Tain-tsair said.
"The coming-of-sixteen celebration tells our young adults to be grateful to their parents, to be independent and to be responsible," he said, "while the celebration also preserves a unique Taiwanese tradition," he said.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying