A celebration parade for the 2018 Taipei Lantern Festival, with shows from 55 groups comprising more than 1,800 performers, was held along the city’s Zhonghua Road Sec 1 (中華路一段) yesterday evening.
As the city’s lantern festival, that began on Feb. 24 along a section of Zhonghua Road between the North Gate (北門) and the Ximen MRT Station, comes to an end today, a parade wrapping up the nine-day event drew crowds out to enjoy the festivities.
The parade began at 5:20pm from the intersection of Zhonghua Road and Wenchang Street (武昌街), moving along Zhonghua Road to the main stage at the plaza outside Ximen MRT Station and ended at the Taipei Cinema Park (電影主題公園).
Five themes were featured in the parade, which included circus performers and performance artists, floats decorated with visual arts and stage designs, people wearing traditional costumes, and Taiwanese athletes who participated in last year’s Taipei Summer Universiade.
One-hundred-and-one dogs and their owners also paraded to celebrate the Year of the Dog.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) joined the parade at about 6pm and played Frisbee with one of the dogs in the parade, who dropped the Frisbee several times.
The Environmental Protection Administration’s air quality monitoring system yesterday indicated a “red level” (unhealthy for all groups) for most areas in western Taiwan.
Consequently, the Taipei Department of Health provided free surgical masks to people at the event and a medical equipment manufacturer donated another 10,000 masks.
The parade showcased outstanding professional arts performances, design, cultural diversity and Taiwan’s Universiade athletes, Ko said, adding that he wishes the city’s residents good luck for the new year.
The parade ended at about 8:20pm, and Ko and the parade’s hosts asked people to hold their smartphone flashlights up near the North Gate for an aerial shot of the thousands of lights in the formation of a dog.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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