Taiwan has played host to scores of festivals celebrating the cultural diversity of Southeast Asia and the larger Asia-Pacific region. This year, events such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ fifth annual Asia-Pacific Culture Day and Chiayi City's 2016 Immigrants Festival brightened Taiwan’s cultural landscape with delicious foods and international dance performances.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized the first Asia–Pacific Culture Day in 2012 to promote cultural exchanges and greater understanding of our neighbors in the Asia–Pacific region.
This year marked the fifth annual APCD. Held in the Taipei Railway Station, it featured more than 50 booths providing information on the ROC’s six formal diplomatic allies in the region, as well as Japan, Korea, and nations targeted by the New Southbound Policy. The festivities began with a concert, but also included dance performances and delicious foods highlighting the region’s cultural diversity.
The recent fifth annual Asia–Pacific Culture Day was a hit with the public. It featured more than 50 booths offering information on the ROC’s six diplomatic allies in the Asia–Pacific region, as well as the New Southbound Policy.
 Vice President Chen Chien-jen and foreign minister David Lee are garlanded with flowers as they make a stop at the booth of ROC diplomatic ally Tuvalu. |
 The New Southbound Policy will bring Taiwan closer to the world by focusing on tangible cultural exchanges as well as trade and education. |
 More than 20 nations taking part in this year’s APCD included Kiribati, India, and Malaysia. Booths drew large crowds with samples of national cuisines and fascinating dance performances. |
 ROC diplomatic partner the Solomon Islands sent hand-carved wooden sculptures all the way to Taiwan for the festival so that attendees could experience the islands’ passion and culture for themselves. |
 Chiayi City’s 2016 Immigrants Day included an exhibition of wedding wear from nine nations, including Vietnam and Nepal. (courtesy of Chiayi City Government) |
 “Hello, Taiwan. How are you?” Representatives at the Nauru booth greeted Taiwanese visitors in Mandarin, English and Nauruan. (courtesy of CNA) |
Cultural diplomacy
During a visit to the festival, Vice President Chen Chien-jen delivered a speech in which he reminded listeners: “President Tsai Ing-wen has noted that culture is a nation’s soul and a key driver of national progress.”
The vice president then observed that Taiwan is itself culturally diverse, and that in recent years new migrants have been further enriching our native soil with elements from their own cultures.
Taiwan’s South and Southeast Asia diplomacy used to be dominated by trade and economics. But, recognizing that culture is at the core of our relationships with our neighbors, the new government has put forward a New Southbound Policy that addresses not just trade and economics, but also education, tourism, science and technology. The policy places particular emphasis on strengthening these relationships through culture and tangible “cultural diplomacy” to bridge the distance between Taiwan and the world beyond our shores.
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee raised the curtain on the 2016 APCD by noting that it marked the fifth edition of the event since its 2012 inauguration, and observing that last year’s festivities had demonstrated Taiwan’s tolerance of and affection for diverse cultures by attracting more than 100,000 visitors.
Lee stated further that such cultural exchanges not only enrich one’s cultural experience, but also foster mutual understanding, reduce interpersonal and international prejudice and conflict, and bring the global community together.
City and county participation
This year’s APCD featured more than 50 nationally themed information booths, including stalls set up by overseas community organizations from Australia, Brunei, and Fiji, as well as those from the six Asia-Pacific nations with which the ROC has formal diplomatic relations—Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu).
This year’s APCD also featured exhibits on the local cultures of Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, and Hsinchu County, all of which have signed sister-city agreements or declarations of friendship with municipalities in the nations targeted by the New Southbound Policy.
New Southbound nations
This wonderful cultural banquet attracted many visitors, both domestic and foreign. Large numbers of migrant workers and immigrants from Southeast Asia also took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy a taste of home.
Endri, an Indonesian woman who has been working in Taiwan for more than a decade, is a caregiver in Xinzhuang, New Taipei City, who spent her day off visiting the festival and sharing her culture with other attendees. The Indonesian booth included a clothing exhibit featuring traditional attire from the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra. Endri told us that the examples on display were very different from those you might see around her home in East Java, explaining that each Indonesian island and ethnicity has its own traditional clothing.
The rear of the booth also displayed examples of the carefully crafted leather puppets used in the puppet shows beloved by Indonesians. Endri noted that the puppet shows given at weddings represent a distinctively Indonesian cultural asset and that puppetry is most common in central, eastern and western Java.
Another target nation of the New Southbound Policy, India operated a booth that also exhibited traditional handicraft items that highlighted some of the beauty of its culture, and attracted still other visitors with the enticing scent of Indian cuisine, an interactive virtual reality installation that let attendees “try on” traditional Indian clothing, and an artist who used natural henna to draw traditional Indian motifs on their skin.
A Chiayi festival
In a bit of serendipity, the Chiayi City Government also held its 2016 Immigrants Festival, an event celebrating the many cultures of new residents, shortly after the APCD.
Noting that Taiwan is itself multicultural, Chiayi mayor Twu Shiing-jer remarked that the biggest difference between that city’s Aborigines, long-established ethnic Chinese residents, and new immigrants is merely when they arrived. Twu went on to state that ethnic integration is the path to social progress.
In a new twist, this year’s festival included both Aboriginal- and new-resident-themed activities, and highlighted another side of multiculturalism with an eye-catching exhibition of wedding attire from nine different countries, including Nepal, Ghana, Vietnam and Japan.
The Chiayi festival was arranged into morning and afternoon “sessions,” with the former focusing on the many cultures of new residents, and the latter consisting of a harvest celebration organized by Aborigines living in the city.
A total of 4,780 new residents currently reside in Chiayi City, and comprise 1.76% of its population of 270,000. The city’s annual Immigrants Festival is sure to help all of its residents, new and old alike, get to know one another.
