A series of warm-up events for the upcoming Hakka Tung Blossom Festival — Taiwan’s largest annual Hakka event — will start with an award ceremony for this year’s Tung Blossom dance and music-writing contests in Nantou County tomorrow, Council for Hakka Affairs Minister Huang Yu-chen (黃玉振) announced yesterday.
Amid traditional Hakka dances and music performed by school children, Huang made the announcement at the council’s headquarters in Taipei.
“With more than 6.4 million visitors to the Hakka Tung Blossom Festival, which [last year] generated NT$23 billion [US$79 million] in revenue for businesses taking part in it, we are confident that we will take the festival to new highs,” Huang said.
This year, the council has helped to organize more than 2,000 events in 45 townships or districts in 13 cities and counties — Taitung, Hualien, Yilan, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Changhua, Yunlin and Nantou Counties, and Taipei, New Taipei City (新北市), Keelung and Taichung cities.
Besides domestic visitors, Huang said the council has received inquiries from China, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Japan, Europe and the Americas.
“The Hakka Tung Blossom Festival may have become the single most popular event in the country,” he said.
The Council for Hakka Affairs has developed an application for smartphones which can be used to find information on the Tung Blossom Festival and the “blooming status” of flowers in different locations.
For more details, visit:
tung.hakka.gov.tw.
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