Shining! 2015 Taipei Lantern Festival – 2132期

Lantern Festival is commonly regarded as one of the most important festivals in Taiwan. The government also holds some other activities to celebrate this festival every year. Within the ten days from February 27th to March 8th, Taipei Lantern Festival had be held in Taipei Expo Park（台北花博公園）. Thousands of lanterns with spectacular lights was on display. In addition, lantern riddle party, lights DIY and many other activities, brought people a carnival of lanterns.

As the organizer of “2015 Taipei Lantern Festival”, Wu-Kun Hung（吳坤宏）, who is also the Deputy Commissioner of Taipei City Government Department of Civil Affairs（台北市政府民政局副局長）, said that the biggest surprise of this year’s Lantern Festival is the invention of a riddle APP called “Netizens Take a Guess”（婉君猜猜看）People could just download the app and receive the riddles on the smart phone automatically. If they make the right answer, they can get the souvenirs. “It took over half of a year and cost a large amount of money to prepare. The aim of developing this app is to preserve traditional culture and that people can have fun at the same time.” Wu said.

The main light of Lantern Festival is usually themed with the same year’s Chinese zodiac, other districts’ lights are provided by temples, students and so on. This year’s main light “Golden Happy Goat”（金喜羊）, which was the first time to cooperate with troupe and music. When mentioning the development of future Lantern Festival, Wu said the hardest part is creativity, “It’s a challenge that we not only need to preserve traditional culture, but also add some new elements every year.”