The Islamic Cultural and Halal Food Festival may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of festive year-end events in Taipei. But the open-air festival at Daan Forest Park promises to have something for the entire family.
This weekend, more than 70 vendors offering Islamic food, crafts and cultural experiences will set up shop along the park’s pathways. Visitors can try out Arabic calligraphy and henna and shop for wares drawn from around the Muslim world.
It will be a rare opportunity to catch many of Taiwan’s small, online businesses in the flesh: La Femme Dromadaire stocks lamps, figurines and burnous (Berber tunics) hand-made in Tunisia; Camel Hump Stay will bring Moroccan leather bags and shoes; and From Syria offers up delicate woven earrings and pouches made by female refugees from the war-torn country.
Photo: Davina Tham, Taipei Times
Visitors can also look forward to a picnic with freshly-served food and drink from a range of Indian, Turkish and Moroccan vendors. Some unusual treats to look out for include food from North Africa, intense brews from Saturn Landing Turkish Coffee and baklava from the Taiwan outpost of Zalatimo Sweets, a 159-year-old Jordanian sweetsmaker.
The festival is co-organized by the Chinese Muslim Association (中國回教協會) and Taipei City Government.
■ The Islamic Cultural and Halal Food Festival takes place tomorrow and Sunday, 10am to 5pm
Photo: Davina Tham, Taipei Times
■ Daan Forest Park (大安森林公園), 1, Xinsheng S Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市新生南路二段1號)
Under pressure, President William Lai (賴清德) has enacted his first cabinet reshuffle. Whether it will be enough to staunch the bleeding remains to be seen. Cabinet members in the Executive Yuan almost always end up as sacrificial lambs, especially those appointed early in a president’s term. When presidents are under pressure, the cabinet is reshuffled. This is not unique to any party or president; this is the custom. This is the case in many democracies, especially parliamentary ones. In Taiwan, constitutionally the president presides over the heads of the five branches of government, each of which is confusingly translated as “president”
By 1971, heroin and opium use among US troops fighting in Vietnam had reached epidemic proportions, with 42 percent of American servicemen saying they’d tried opioids at least once and around 20 percent claiming some level of addiction, according to the US Department of Defense. Though heroin use by US troops has been little discussed in the context of Taiwan, these and other drugs — produced in part by rogue Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) armies then in Thailand and Myanmar — also spread to US military bases on the island, where soldiers were often stoned or high. American military policeman
An attempt to promote friendship between Japan and countries in Africa has transformed into a xenophobic row about migration after inaccurate media reports suggested the scheme would lead to a “flood of immigrants.” The controversy erupted after the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, said this month it had designated four Japanese cities as “Africa hometowns” for partner countries in Africa: Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania. The program, announced at the end of an international conference on African development in Yokohama, will involve personnel exchanges and events to foster closer ties between the four regional Japanese cities — Imabari, Kisarazu, Sanjo and
The Venice Film Festival kicked off with the world premiere of Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia Wednesday night on the Lido. The opening ceremony of the festival also saw Francis Ford Coppola presenting filmmaker Werner Herzog with a lifetime achievement prize. The 82nd edition of the glamorous international film festival is playing host to many Hollywood stars, including George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Dwayne Johnson, and famed auteurs, from Guillermo del Toro to Kathryn Bigelow, who all have films debuting over the next 10 days. The conflict in Gaza has also already been an everpresent topic both outside the festival’s walls, where
RSS