More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today.
The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016.
The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night.
Photo courtesy of Tourism Administration
Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government.
The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT line.
The festival features a main lantern — which is shaped as the symbol of infinity and has patterns of cobra, mountains and sea — as well as two auxiliary lanterns and 11 theme lanterns.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Railway Corp
The display of the lanterns at the exhibition near the HSR station was inspired by the Rakuten Taoyuan Baseball Stadium, with the main lantern and three other lanterns being placed in ways that resemble the home base, first base, second base and third base of the ballpark. Another lantern that features baseball players is the pitching mound in the design.
The platform used in the inauguration ceremony resembles aircraft wings, as Taoyuan is known for its Taoyuan Aerotropolis — a large urban development project, said Martin Yang (楊佳璋), the festival’s project manager.
A three-minute lighting show would be played on the main lantern every 30 minutes.
In the “Creating Technology Trend” area, the organizer uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create an interactive space, where visitors could practice how to play baseball with AI representations of World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 champion national team players Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲), Pan Chieh-kai (潘傑楷) and Lin An-ko (林安可).
The city government oversaw the designing of lanterns installed in Rakuten Taoyuan Baseball Stadium and four other locations around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station. The planning of the festival highlights Taoyuan as a city known as “the city of a thousand ponds.”
The 12-day event is estimated to attract 15 million visitors from home and overseas, Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Railway Corp said it is to introduce a new boxed lunch featuring basil chili pork, which would be only available during the festival.
The boxed lunch is inspired by Taoyuan being home to Hoklo, Hakka, indigenous people as well as Chinese, the railway company said, adding that immigrants from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia also have roots in the city.
Aside from chili pork, thelunches have Thai jasmine rice, shrimp cake, shrimp sauce-flavored cabbage, bell peppers, stir-fried mushrooms and bean sprouts.
Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp said it would schedule 95 additional trains during the festival and dispatch a train every 20 minutes on weekdays and every 15 minutes on weekends.
During the festival, the Taoyuan HSR Station would implement measures to ensure passengers enter and exit in an orderly fashion, the company said.
Passengers who are scheduled to travel to the airport are encouraged to leave home early to avoid crowds, it said.
POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT: Japan and the US are expected to hold in-depth discussions on Taiwan-related issues during the meeting next month, Japanese sources said The holding of a Japan-US leaders’ meeting ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to China is positive news for Taiwan, former Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association representative Hiroyasu Izumi said yesterday. After the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory in Japan’s House of Representatives election, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is scheduled to visit the US next month, where she is to meet with Trump ahead of the US president’s planned visit to China from March 31 to April 2 for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Japan and the US are expected to hold in-depth discussions on Taiwan-related issues during the
‘LIKE-MINDED PARTNER’: Tako van Popta said it would be inappropriate to delay signing the deal with Taiwan because of China, adding he would promote the issue Canadian senators have stressed Taiwan’s importance for international trade and expressed enthusiasm for ensuring the Taiwan-Canada trade cooperation framework agreement is implemented this year. Representative to Canada Harry Tseng (曾厚仁) in an interview with the Central News Agency (CNA) said he was increasingly uneasy about Ottawa’s delays in signing the agreement, especially as Ottawa has warmed toward Beijing. There are “no negotiations left. Not only [is it] initialed, we have three versions of the text ready: English, French and Mandarin,” Tseng said. “That tells you how close we are to the final signature.” Tseng said that he hoped Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday bestowed one of Taiwan’s highest honors on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) Ambassador Andrea Clare Bowman in recognition of her contributions to bilateral ties. “By conferring the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon on Ambassador Bowman today, I want to sincerely thank her, on behalf of the Taiwanese people, for her outstanding contribution to deepening diplomatic ties between Taiwan and SVG,” Lai said at a ceremony held at the Presidential Office in Taipei. He noted that Bowman became SVG’s first ambassador to Taiwan in 2019 and
A man walks past elementary school artworks at the Taipei Lantern Festival in Ximen District yesterday, the first day of the event. The festival is to run from 5pm to 10pm through March 15.
RSS