The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said it plans to maintain its long-standing tradition by releasing a prerecorded Lunar New Year greeting video before the weekend, which it hopes will help shatter stereotypes of the institute being serious.
“We want people to see the fun and lighter side of AIT. I think people think of us as being very serious, because there is a lot of security here, we are all doing our business and the [AIT] director makes these very official speeches,” spokeswoman Amanda Mansour told the Taipei Times.
The institute’s video features singing and dancing involving AIT Director Brent Christensen, Mansour said, adding that it would retain some important traditional elements and include a Lunar New Year speech by Christensen and his wife.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
As this year marks the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the Taiwan Relations Act, which has served as a cornerstone of Taiwan-US ties since formal diplomatic relations were severed in 1979, Mansour said that the overarching theme of the video would be friendship.
“If you think about an actual friendship, there are parts that are really fun and silly, but there is also a kind of serious core where there are people you rely on, you really care about and trust your best interests with,” she said.
“We want our newest video to reflect a little bit about that,” she said, adding that the video is the result of weeks of effort by about 50 Taiwanese and American employees and interns at the AIT.
As the AIT’s past Lunar New Year videos have been quite popular among Taiwanese, Mansour said that the production team was under a lot of pressure and did its best to make sure the video is fun and does not disappoint.
Another effort to celebrate the multifaceted friendship between Taiwan and the US would be a year-round campaign that each month focuses on an important area of cooperation between the two sides, including science, education, sports, environment, security, trade and investment, food and beverages, and immigrant experiences, she said.
As April is the month when the Taiwan Relations Act was signed, the theme for this April would be “shared values,” Mansour said, adding that this demonstrates the core of the relationship between Taipei and Washington.
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