A five-week-long Hakka arts festival will open in Liutuei Township (六堆), Pingtung County, on Saturday to showcase traditional and innovative aspects of the ethnic group’s culture, Council for Hakka Affairs Minister Huang Yu-cheng (黃玉振) said yesterday.
Huang told reporters at a press conference in Taipei to promote the “A-Ha 2009” festival that it would provide 10 days of activities on five consecutive weekends. Most of the events will be held at the Liutuei Hakka Cultural Park and concert hall.
PERFORMERS
A total of 40 groups of artists and performers of all ages will perform during the festival, Huang said.
The line-up includes Lai Pi-hsia (賴碧霞), who is considered a “living national treasure” for her unique mountain ballads and became famous not only for her folk songs but also for her Hakka Opera songs; the 200-year-old Hsinwawu Folk Dance Troupe; prize-winning Hakka rocker Liu Shao-xi (劉劭希); and the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra.
HAKKA HISTORY
The Hakka people are a subgroup of Han Chinese who originally lived in central China but gradually migrated south during different dynasties as they fled war and famine.
They settled in Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces where the locals named them Hakka, which means “guests.”
The Hakka have retained many of their cultural traditions, despite their dispersal all over the world over the past 100 years.
A poll conducted by the Council for Hakka Affairs last year found that 25.6 percent of Taiwanese, or roughly 5.79 million people, consider themselves to be Hakka.
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