With a lively dragon dance and cheerful Hakka folk songs, the annual Taipei Hakka Memorial Ceremony began at Taipei City Hall yesterday, filling the city with the joys of Hakka worship rituals and scrumptious Hakka food.
Hundreds of people flocked to the Taipei City Hall Square yesterday to attend the ceremony, which culminated in a wash of color and noise.
The festival serves as a memorial for the Hakka warriors who died fighting for their land during Qing Dynasty rule over Taiwan.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Taiwan's Hakka hold the annual festival during the seventh lunar month, and there are Yimin temples in most Hakka cultural centers throughout the nation.
The ceremony is also known for its unique custom of sacrificing "spirit pigs," which are traditionally grown to a huge size before being slaughtered. Today's ceremonies often use likenesses of pigs instead of the real thing.
Addressing the ceremony, Taipei City Bureau of Hakka Affairs chairman Huang Cheng-chong (
"We also incorporated traditional events with creative ideas to attract younger generations of both the Hakka community and non-Hakka people," he said.
A 9m-high wall made up of red and yellow lanterns showed the words "Yimin" (
In addition to stalls selling Hakka food, an area for traditional Hakka sports competitions and a series of folk song performances by 38 Hakka youth chorus groups, over 2,000 members from the Hakka community participated in the "food offering" custom at Songshan High School.
The custom is a sacrificial ceremony preserved in the Hakka community. Every year, several households prepare cooked dishes and carry them to the ceremony to honor the Yimin spirits at the temple. The offering goes on through the entire year with several households coming each day to make the sacrifice.
"The festival presents a spectacular altar, the orthodox god-greeting process, and a great many different Hakka groups and organizations from different corners of Taiwan," said Lin Hui-chun (林惠純) of the Taipei City Bureau of Hakka Affairs.
There are several Yimin temples in Taiwan, but the most famous is situated in Hsinpu (
This temple is not only the sacrificial center for 15 villages, it also attracts followers from all over Taiwan and overseas, and has become a center of Hakka religious belief.
The ceremony runs through 8pm tonight in front of Taipei City Hall. For more information on the ceremony events, visit the bureau's Web site at http://www.hakka.taipei.gov.tw
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS