A lantern festival featuring Taiwanese night market snacks opened in Changzhou, China, on Saturday.
The festival was organized by the Tourism Bureau and the local government in Jiangsu Province, the bureau said yesterday.
This is the third time that city the is hosting the festival, now in its ninth iteration, it added.
Photo courtesy of the Tourism Bureau
As Changzhou is less than one hour’s train ride from some of China’s major cities, including Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and Shanghai, the event is expected to attract many visitors, it said.
This year’s theme is “The Autobot Pig,” bureau Chief Secretary Eric Lin (林坤源) said.
The main lantern, a golden pig clad in red armor, “transforms the traditional image of pigs as the guardians of forests into futuristic autobots,” he said.
Hopefully the lantern will bring good luck to visitors to the festival, Lin added.
To promote Taiwan’s beaches and food, the festival features lanterns depicting dolphins commonly spotted off Taiwan’s east coast, ocean waves at Kenting’s Baisha Bay (墾丁白沙灣), sailing boats at Pingtung’s Dapeng Bay (大鵬灣), southern bluefin tuna, pineapples and java apples, as well as the bureau’s mascot, OhBear, Lin said.
Vendors from Shilin Night Market are selling Taiwanese snacks at the festival, the bureau said.
By tasting fried chicken fillets, oyster omelets, stinky tofu, boba milk tea and other Taiwanese snacks, hopefully more Chinese will be interested in visiting Taiwan, the bureau said.
At a lantern-lighting ceremony on Saturday evening, Lin encouraged people to visit Pingtung’s Dapeng Bay for this year’s Taiwan Lantern Festival.
The festival, which is to run from Feb. 19 to March 3, is to feature a giant bluefin tuna lantern, which symbolizes abundance, he said.
Chinese interested in visiting the Taiwan Lantern Festival can join tours organized by the bureau’s offices in Beijing and Shanghai, and local travel agencies, the bureau said.
Details about the Taiwan Lantern Festival, including recommended itineraries, can be found at https://2019taiwanlantern.taiwan.net.tw.
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