The Council for Hakka Affairs (CHA), local governments and local cultural groups plan to organize as many as 21 official festivals in Hakka and some non-Hakka villages across the country throughout next year, CHA Minister Huang Yu-chen (黃玉振) announced yesterday.
“Next year will be the third year we are holding the Hakka festivities, which have been very popular since the first year,” Huang told a press conference at the council’s headquarters in Taipei.
“The series of events not only showcased Taiwan’s rich Hakka culture to the world, but also attracted more visitors to Hakka villages, as well as enhanced cultural exchanges between different ethnic groups in this country,” Huang said.
The minister said that in the past, only counties, cities, or townships where Hakka constituted the majority population would apply to organize Hakka festivities.
“However, now, a lot of counties and cities where there aren’t significant Hakka populations have joined the activities to celebrate Hakka culture,” he said.
Greater Kaohsiung, as well as Yunlin and Changhua counties, where Hakka either account for a small percentage of the population or have lost their language and much of their culture, have nevertheless chosen to organize Hakka festivities.
In Yunlin, there will be festivities featuring the culture of the Zhao-an Hakka (詔安客), including a torch parade derived from ancient night watchers’ patrols.
Most Hakka in Yunlin can trace their ancestral roots to Zhao-an in China’s Fujian Province. Because of their close interaction with Hoklo, they speak a variety of Hakka that may be hard to understand for other Hakka. Also, as a result of their close interaction with Hoklo, most of them no longer retain their language, with the exception of a few words and phrases, and have adopted Hoklo as their native tongue.
In February, there will be a unique “dragon bombing” event to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Miaoli, which involves the practice of throwing firecrackers at teams dancing prop dragons.
The practice comes from the belief that the dragon is a sacred creature and throwing firecrackers at it would make it happy.
“Through these events, we hope that people of different ethnicities would be able to understand, to learn about, and to appreciate each other’s cultures,” Huang said.
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