This year’s Taipei Lantern Festival is to light up Shilin District (士林) and highlight the area’s attractions, such as Shilin Night Market (士林夜市), a top city official said yesterday.
The 10-day festival, held between Feb. 11 and 20, would be held in areas along three MRT stations in the district, including MRT Jiantan Station, which serves Shilin Night Market, to showcase a fusion of traditional lantern and night market culture, Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) told a news conference.
Visitors can also take the MRT railway serving metropolitan Taipei to Shilin or Zhishan stations to visit the festival, which is to feature stage lanterns at venues including Taipei Performing Arts Center, Shilin Night Market, Shuangxi Riverside Park (雙溪河濱公園), Taipei Astronomical Museum, Taipei Children’s Amusement Park, National Taiwan Science Education Center and Meilun Park (美崙公園).
Photo: Tsai Ssu-pei, Taipei Times
Taipei Lantern Festival creative director Akibo Lee (李明道) said the festival is to feature more than 50 lanterns and lantern artworks, with the main lantern to be unveiled on Jan. 20.
The festival would host shows and performances on two stages, Lee said, adding that visitors would have to comply with COVID-19 curbs, including contact tracing.
In response to growing concern over local infections in the past few days in northern Taiwan, Tsai said that adjustments to the festival schedule might be made if the COVID-19 situation changed.
“For us, this is already a new normal, and under tough situations we have standard operating procedures to handle things the right way,” Tsai said. “We will do things according to the pandemic situation.”
Due to COVID-19, last year’s edition of the festival was postponed twice. It was originally scheduled to take place from Feb. 26 to March 7, but was held from Dec. 17 to 26.
“The global pandemic situation is still serious, but domestically everyone is working hard to protect our borders and make our communities safe, so for now we will go ahead with our plans,” Tsai said. “We will make adjustments at any time in response to any situation,” Tsai said.
Information on this year’s festival can be found at 2022lanternfestival.taipei.
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