The Canadian Chamber of Commerce Taiwan yesterday invited the public to Canada Day celebrations at the Taipei Hakka Cultural Park on June 27.
“We have been having this event for many years and this is our third year holding it at the Taipei Hakka Cultural Park,” acting chamber chairman Leo Seewald said at a news conference at the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
“This year’s event, which will take place on the Saturday after the next, is to mark Canada’s 148th birthday — we hope everyone can come and have fun, and please bring more friends with you,” he said.
Photo: Loa Iok-sin, Taipei Times
“The Canada Day celebration in Taiwan is the largest outside of Canada; we had more than 8,000 people attending last year and we hope to have more this year,” he added.
Seewald said that the event is to start at 1pm and run until 9pm, with performances by Canadian and Taiwanese artists, as well as offerings of Canadian specialty food and drinks.
“We will have a kids’ zone, with a bouncy castle, face-painting and ice hockey for children,” Seewald said.
“There will be professional hockey players present to teach kids how to shoot [goals in] hockey,” he added.
Allan Edwards, trade and investment director of the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei, said it is impressive that people in Taiwan have so much interest in the event to make it the largest international festival in the nation.
“I always think that the best way to connect people is by sharing the culture, so we share the music, we share our stories and we share the food — which I think is the physical embodiment of culture,” Edwards said. “When I think of beavertail, I do not think of a beaver, and I certainly do not think of the recipe — I think of skating.”
Edwards said that he would think of the times he skated along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa in cold weather, because as he skated, he would build up an appetite, and at the end, he would stop at one of the small shops to buy the traditional Canadian dessert of beavertail — a fried dough pastry — to warm himself up.
“Beavertail is part of my culture, skating is part of my culture, cold weather is part of my culture and good food is part of my culture,” he said. “I hope you will all come, you will all enjoy and you will all get to feel that kind of Canadian warmth.”
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