The annual two-day Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, a tradition with more than 100 years of history, began yesterday in Tainan’s Yanshuei District (鹽水), featuring more than 2 million "beehive firecrackers."
The festival, traditionally held on the 14th and 15th days of the first month in the lunar calendar to celebrate the Lantern Festival, started at Yanshui Wu Temple, the main organizer.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) lit the first string of firecrackers to mark the start of the event before boarding a parade float to tour Yanshuei’s main streets, throwing candy to bystanders as a blessing for the public.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
According to the temple, the festival’s procession is to be divided into five routes covering different areas of Yanshuei, with about 200 firecracker sets awaiting participants along the way.
The highlight of the event is to take place this evening at Tainan Municipal Yanshuei Junior High School, where about 2 million firecrackers are to be simultaneously launched from three large LED-lit firecracker towers.
As the temple palanquin passes by spectators may be struck by the firecrackers, which are believed to "end ill fortune, resolve difficulties and bring good luck for the coming year," the Tainan Tourism and Travel Bureau said.
Those intending to attend the festival should wear protective and nonflammable clothing that completely covers the body and face to avoid potential injuries caused by fireworks, the city government said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 today amid outcry over his decision to wear a Nazi armband to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case last night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and covering the book with his coat. Lee said today that this is a serious
A mountain blaze that broke out yesterday morning in Yangmingshan National Park was put out after five hours, following multi agency efforts involving dozens of fire trucks and helicopter water drops. The fire might have been sparked by an air quality sensor operated by the National Center for High-Performance Computing, one of the national-level laboratories under the National Applied Research Laboratories, Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters said. The Taipei City Fire Department said the fire, which broke out at about 11am yesterday near the mountainous Xiaoyoukeng (小油坑) Recreation Area was extinguished at 4:32pm. It had initially dispatched 72 personnel in four command vehicles, 16
RSS