A student from Taipei won first prize in the “divine pig” statue painting contest in this year’s Hsinchu Hakka Yimin Cultural Festival, winning NT$5,000, the Hsinchu County Cultural Affairs Bureau said on Wednesday.
The divine pig painting contest uses statues in lieu of fattened sacrificial pigs, which were traditionally used in Hakka culture.
Huang Jou-chen (黃柔甄), a student from Taipei Municipal Guting Elementary School, beat 66 entrants to win the first prize in the elementary-school division, which was added to the annual contest this year.
Photo: Huang Mei-chu, Taipei Times
The competition in the adult division was divided into three stages, in which contestants progressed from creating concept designs to painting on 50cm-tall “little divine pig” statues and to painting on 1.5m-tall “big divine pig” statues in the final round, the bureau said, adding that of the 661 contestants, 20 reached the final round.
The final round was omitted in the elementary-school division, given that children would have trouble painting a full-sized divine pig statue, the bureau said.
The judges said that they awarded Huang first prize because she displayed a superior command of using color contrasts to direct the viewer’s attention toward the statute’s eyes, the bureau said.
The divine pig painting contest aims to promote the cultural heritage of Yimin (義民) religious practices in an artistic and environmentally friendly way, the Hsinchu County Government said.
Yimin — literarily “righteous people” — is a title given by the Qing Empire to mostly Hakka settlers who died defending their villages in anti-Qing uprisings led by Lin Shuang-wen (林爽文) and Tai Chao-chun (戴潮春) in 1787 and 1862 respectively.
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