Members of the Hakka community across the country — and overseas — celebrated National Hakka Day yesterday, though some continued to protest the choice of “Sky Mending Day” as being unrepresentative of their community and culture.
Hakka Affairs Council Vice Minister Chung Wan-mei (鍾萬梅) led a group of council officials and Hakka leaders as they paid their respects to the Goddess Nuwa (女媧) in Zhongshan Hall square in Taipei. They offered sweet ball-shaped rice cakes as a gesture of appreciation for the goddesses’ efforts to mend the sky and asked for blessings throughout the year.
Similar rituals and celebrations took place all around the country.
“According to an ancient myth, there was once a battle between the God of Fire and the God of Water that was so ferocious it tore a hole in the sky. As a result, the Earth was inundated with water, causing floods everywhere, and people suffered,” Chung said, recounting the origin of Sky Mending Day to the media.
“Nuwa did not want people to suffer, so she made colorful rocks and mended the hole in the sky to save people from drowning — this is the origin of Sky Mending Day, which falls on the 20th day of the first lunar month,” Chung said.
Chung said that although the myth is not unique to Hakka people, it is the Hakka community that celebrates that day, which is why two years ago the council chose Sky Mending Day as National Hakka Day.
“I remember when I was a child, my mother would get up early to make ball-shaped rice cakes, which symbolize the rocks used to mend the hole in the sky,” he said. “This holiday is still celebrated by the Hakka community in Taiwan and overseas.”
However, some Hakka people in the south said that they had never celebrated Sky Mending Day and felt that its choice as National Hakka Day failed to take into consideration the opinions of the community as a whole.
“I had never heard of Sky Mending Day until the Hakka Affairs Council chose it as National Hakka Day,” said a 30-year-old surnamed Liu (劉) from the predominantly Hakka town of Meinong (美濃) in Greater Kaohsiung. “When the council announced it, I asked my grandpa, and he said he had never heard of it either.”
Liu Huang Hsi-mei (劉黃喜妹), a 90-year-old woman from Meinong, also said she had never heard of Sky Mending Day, but thought the selection of the holiday as National Hakka Day was still a positive move because it would help to promote and preserve Hakka culture and language.
“We are aware that Sky Mending Day is not celebrated in all Hakka regions, but we can always create new traditions,” Chung said. “Especially as we can now give the traditional holiday a more modern interpretation — we all need to help mend the hole in the ozone layer, this is our modern-day sky-mending.”
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
An exhibition celebrating Taiwan and Japan’s comic culture opened on Saturday in Taichung, featuring a section that explores Taiwanese reproductions of Japanese comics from when martial law limited Japanese representation. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth” held its Taiwan opening ceremony at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Comics after an initial one-month run in Japan’s Kyoto International Manga Museum between May 24 and June 24. Much like the Kyoto exhibition, the show mainly celebrates the comic connection between Taiwan and Japan through late Taiwanese comic book