Charlie Wu (吳權益) has been traveling to Taiwan for years to scout out musical talent, emerging designers and Aboriginal traditions for TaiwanFest (加拿大台灣文化節), an annual event in Toronto and Vancouver that kicks off at the end of next month.
Wu, the festival’s managing director, says the event has become wildly popularity — there were 150,000 visitors last year — due to the unique lineup of performers and delicacies.
Take the bento — a common boxed meal that made its way to Taiwan under Japan’s colonial occupation. Rather than simply selling the food item, TaiwanFest initiated the Friendship Bento, an event that matched 100 Taiwanese-Canadians with 100 others from a different background for a seated meal to encourage dialogue and learning.
Photo courtesy of TaiwanFest
“There are so many ways of presenting ourselves,” says artistic director Jessica Sung (宋浩芬). “The challenge is how to present something unique.”
This year, organizers will roll out the Dialogue with Asia series, starting with Taiwan’s “cultural tango” with Hong Kong in August.
“The evolution [of the festival] is the driving force. [We hope] future generations can enjoy something we leave for them,” Wu says in his office, which is adorned with family photos.
Photo courtesy of TaiwanFest
The legacy of their work is manifested in unexpected ways. Sung recalls the unlikely pairing of pop singer Rachel Liang (梁文音) and indie band Lang Hsin Band (嵐馨樂團) from Taitung for a concert collaboration at a previous TaiwanFest. Indie music bands outside of Taipei don’t always get as many opportunities in Taiwan, Sung says. Through sharing a stage in Canada, Liang discovered that one of the band members is her distant cousin from the same Aboriginal tribe. Their collaboration was captured in Liang’s follow-up album.
For Hsu Chian-li (許建立), festival director from 1998 to 2000, TaiwanFest has grown under Wu’s leadership because he brought it outdoors and expanded the musical genres. Hsu adds that the hundreds of volunteers have also been instrumental to the festival’s success.
TaiwanFest has recently partnered with Tzu Chi Foundation Canada (慈濟加拿大分會) and social enterprise Green Chair Recycling, putting a philanthropic and environmental spin to the festival.
Photo courtesy of TaiwanFest
For participants, the sight of numerous stations patrolled by efficient volunteer sorters is a memorable experience in itself. In 2014, after seeing thousands of guests over three days in Vancouver, Green Chair announced that with Tzu Chi Foundation, only three bags of garbage were produced.
Raymond Louie, Vancouver City Councilor and long-time supporter of TaiwanFest, says Taiwan and Canada share the same democratic values, entrepreneurship and ideas about gender equality.
“It’s about bringing people, families, from all areas of our city, all types of ages so they can come to a free family event and learn about culture, food, dance, music — and make friends. That’s why these types of festivals, especially TaiwanFest, are so important for our city.”
Photo courtesy of TaiwanFest
For more information, visit: www.taiwanfest.ca.
IN 2002 Thomas Hertog received an e-mail summoning him to the office of his mentor Stephen Hawking. The young researcher rushed to Hawking’s room at Cambridge. “His eyes were radiant with excitement,” Hertog recalls. Typing on the computer-controlled voice system that allowed the cosmologist to communicate, Hawking announced: “I have changed my mind. My book, A Brief History of Time, is written from the wrong perspective.” Thus one of the biggest-selling scientific books in publishing history, with worldwide sales credited at more than 10 million, was consigned to the waste bin by its own author. Hawking and Hertog then began working on
March 27 to April 2 After placing fifth in the 1964 Miss Universe pageant in Miami, “Miss China” Yu Yi (于儀) toured the US to great fanfare. The Chinese community in San Francisco called her the “pride of the Republic of China (ROC),” and she even received the key to New York City. Taiwan’s Miss China pageant produced three winners that year who performed on the international stage. Lin Su-hsin (林素幸), the second Taiwan-born Miss China, did even better, claiming third place in London’s Miss World. She says she was elated to see
Last week, the huge news broke that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would not host an open primary for its presidential nominee, but instead pick a candidate through a committee process. KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) sent forth a few polite meaningless words about party unity in making the announcement. There’s great commentary on this momentous move, so I will say only that for those of you who think the KMT will “never be that dumb,” I have three words for you: Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), the unelectable candidate the party chose for the 2016 presidential race. Criticism of the Democratic Progressive
Pingtung County was home to many of Taiwan’s earliest Hakka immigrants. Jiadong Township (佳冬鄉), now little more than a small rural outpost along the road to Kenting with a slowly dwindling population and a local economy supported mainly by aquaculture, was once a thriving Hakka stronghold. Evidence of the residents’ strong family ties, self-reliance and, in some cases, keen business sense, still remains. At the time of the Japanese takeover in 1895, it was still an important enough center that the incoming colonists sent a special military mission to capture it. Nowadays, much has been done to preserve the cultural