Beginning this weekend, Taiwan will start its Lunar New Year celebrations, in anticipation of the nine-day holiday that begins next Sunday (Jan. 29).
Taipei City Government is collaborating with the Chiang Kai-shek Culture Center and the Taiwan New Century Culture and Art Association to hold a series of cultural activities beginning tomorrow.
Over 1,100 hand-painted Chinese artistic lanterns will be displayed in the grounds of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall from tomorrow until Feb 19.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK CULTURE CENTER
On the same site, over 1,000 elementary students from Taipei and other cities have been invited to assemble and brush-paint their own lanterns in a three-day event starting tomorrow, until Sunday.
The annual ritual of giving away free gifts, such as small lanterns and New Year couplets, will take place this Sunday, from 2pm to 4pm. As they say, the early bird catches the worm, so there's sure to be a long queue of people inside the Memorial Hall waiting for their New Year gifts.
Meanwhile, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum will sponsor the Mozart Film Festival from next Thursday (Jan. 26) to Feb 12, and will present films such as Magic Flute, Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro. The event is intended to combine the Lunar New Year celebrations with those for Amadeus Mozart's 250th anniversary, which falls next Friday (Jan. 27). Call (02) 2595 7656 for a show schedule.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAICHUNG CITY GOVERNMENT
In addition, the cultural bureau of the Taipei City Government is co-sponsoring with the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the Sheraton Hotel Taipei a day-long, non-stop concert of Mozart's music from next Thursday morning (Jan. 26) until the early hours of the following morning.
A similar event will be held by the German Cultural Center Taipei, named "A Night of Mozart," next Friday evening (Jan. 27), from 6pm to 11pm. The event is free and will consist of two musical parts, as well as a theatrical one, in which two Austrian actresses will interpret excerpts from Mozart's letters to his cousin.
From next Sunday (Jan. 29) to Feb. 6, the Spring Folklore Art Festival in Taichung City will feature lion and dragon dances, Taiwan folklore music, jazz music and symphony orchestra concerts. All the events will be held at the Folklore Culture Park.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KAOHSIUNG COUNTY GOVERNMENT
Also, the Taichung Traditional Art Festival is scheduled to begin Feb. 5 and continue to Feb. 12. Various cultural activities, including Taiwanese puppet shows, Taiwanese operas, Chinese music concerts and acrobats will be presented daily at the Taichung Park from 4pm to 9pm on the weekdays, and from 2pm to 9pm on the weekends.
Tainan County Government is aggressively promoting its "2006 World Candy Culture Festival" this year due to the success of last year's event which attracted more than 1 million visitors.
In its second year, County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (
The festival, which will run from tomorrow until March 19, features Hello Kitty as an ambassador of the global village and shows off different candies from around the world.
Also, the Hello Kitty Troupe from Kyushiu, Japan is scheduled to perform during the Lunar New Year holidays, at the Xiao-long Culture Park (
The annual "International Puppet Show Festival," sponsored by the Kaohsiung County Government and the Council for Cultural Affairs, will start tomorrow and go on until Feb. 5. The 16-day-long festival will focus on exhibits of rarely seen Barbie dolls.
This will take place at the Wei-wu military camp, where a series of traditional and international puppet shows will also be staged. A multi-purpose culture park with state-of-the-art music and drama performance halls will be built on the site in 2011. Visit www.kscg.gov.tw for more information.
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
RSS