Twenty-seven sand sculpture artists from 13 countries around the world are to present their works and compete at the annual Fulong International Sand Sculpture Festival, which opens on Saturday next week.
Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area Administration director Fang Cheng-guang (方正光) said that the festival has been held since 2008, adding that the sand sculpture competition has been held annually for three years.
Fang said that the topic this year is the “United Nations of Toys.”
Artists from the US, Canada, France, Britain, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Russia, South Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands are to show their craft and compete for the top prize.
The administration said the sand sculptures would feature various toys and games, from teddy bears and remote control cars to Taiwanese puppet shows and hopscotch.
Fang said that the festival would run until July 12.
Fang said that the festival last year drew about 300,000 visitors.
Though the administration had estimated that the number of visitors this year would be higher than last year, he said that the focus is on lowering tourism’s impact on the environment and increasing the quality of the visits.
“We encourage people to come to Fulong by train and take a bike tour around the northeast coast,” he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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