Amid Taipei City councilors' opposition to setting up the city's -- and Taiwan's -- first official Hakka governmental organization, the fifth annual Taipei Hakka Festival is slated to kick off on Saturday at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
Addressing reporters yesterday, director of the city's Bureau of Civil Affairs (民政局), Lin Cheng-hsiou (林正修), who is of Hakka descent, said it was important to preserve Hakka heritage.
"Hakka culture is like a deserted island gradually being submerged in the sea of other aggressive ethnic cultures. I'm afraid that if we don't save it now, it might be too late," he said. "There is an immediate need to set up the Hakka affairs commission, but we desperately need approval from the City Council."
The Taipei City Government approved a draft measure to establish a Hakka affairs commission on April 11 this year. The proposed commission was part of Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
DPP City Councilor Yeh Hsin-yi (
"Hakka people are different from Aborigines because the Hakka are not a minority group," he said, adding that Taipei has about 400,000 Hakka, or about 15 percent of its population.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not against Hakka culture. I just think that there's no need to create hostility among different ethnic groups," Yeh said. "We have a commission set up already for native Taiwanese. Now they want one more for the Hakka. What about other ethnic groups? When is it going to end if we set up different units for each of them?"
He said that a better idea might be to set up a subsidiary unit under a municipal agency such as the Bureau of Civil Affairs or the Bureau of Cultural Affairs.
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