In April and May of 2006, the snowlike tung blossoms will return in profusion, creating a scene almost spiritual in its beauty. The Executive Yuan's Council for Hakka Affairs (CHA) has organized this festival every year since 2002, generating bigger and better benefits every year for culture, tourism, industry, and Hakka lifestyles. In the spring of 2006, the council is organizing cultural adornment of Hakka villages and promoting further grassroots development of culture through creative channels, and they anticipate a large number of visitors, coming together to enjoy a harmonious union of heaven, earth, and man.

The festival at your fingertips

This year, if you're thinking about heading to the Hakka Tung Blossom Festival, you'll be able to get access to information on the quickest, most convenient routes and means online, thanks to the CHA's new festival website (http://www.hakka.gov.tw/Tung/). The site is home to over 200 suggested itineraries, offering ideas for walks, coffee, food, farms, fun parks, and art trips. And thanks to the wonders of GPS, you can now download information on scenic locations directly to your in-car navigation system or GPS-capable PDA, ensuring everything really is right at your fingertips. A full range of information will be available on the website from the start of the festival, giving everyone the chance to fully appreciate the beauty of the blossoms.

Grassroots culture

The 2006 Hakka Tung Blossom Festival will seek to further nurture Taiwanese Hakka culture through two kinds of event: grassroots culture events and cultural community events. This year a range of Hakka arts and culture groups will gather under the blossoming trees in the various Hakka areas, performing songs, theater, choral singing, and bayin music, as well as running trips and cultural activities centered around cooking, flower-pressing, natural dyeing, firefly viewing, nighttime visits to old houses, street performances, and traditional village life. Additionally, 16 industry groups, including craftspeople, ceramicists, and sculptors will present unique cultural creativity pieces and promote local industries.

As the blossoms begin to fall, the CHA is blossoming too, hosting a creative new piece of theater entitled Shang Ye Tong, Kan Da Xi, which is a romantic comedy about a tung blossom spirit who shuttles between the heavens and earth. There will also be large-scale events like the "Railroad Rock" concert, including musical events featuring mountain songs, folk music, and plays. Additionally, various communities will come together for cultural community events, including Chinchin community in Kuanhsi Township, giving residents a taste of a new style. Sanyi train station in Miaoli will be given a facelift, becoming Tung Blossom Station; Kupu's Shenghsing Station and Taipei's Taiwan Handicraft Center will also transform, becoming tung blossom theme halls. This is all part of this year's "Creating Art Spots" plan.

Build culture, unite industries, go global

As far as building up and marketing cultural industries goes, this year the CHA has specially invited master designers who will create packaging for locally distinctive products--a total of 39 people and groups are involved in this project, which will endeavor to make the tung blossom part of everyday life rather than a simple object of appreciation.

Industries will be brought together through joint marketing schemes, which will help the populace become more involved in local culture. Tung-blossom-based products have already been on display at this year's "Ambiente" international trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany, and saw excellent sales. In the future, the image of the Hakka tung blossom will continue to grace a range of products and be sold to the world.

To inject new vitality into Taiwan's local and creative industries, the CHA has not only started sales at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, on China Airlines aircraft, and at the Taiwan Handicraft Center, they have also got creative new products into major department stores. Prepare to be amazed by tung-blossom lamps with refined and elegant lines, vibrant and colorful tung-blossom bags, tung-blossom fineliner pens, tung-blossom pendants symbolizing pureness of heart, tung-themed notepads and coasters, and other such products.

We hope that the spirit of the tung blossom will be revived and unleashed on the world via Hakka cultural industries, giving it new life and new power, and helping Taiwan put on a glorious international face through its most bustling, beautiful festival.

About Tung Blossoms

The tung-oil tree (Vernicia montana) belongs to the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae) and flowers for one to three weeks a year, in spring. The flowers have five petals. The foliage remains green throughout the summer, and the tree fruits in autumn. The tree has a broad range of uses: Oil from the seeds is used in paint and as a wood conditioner, and the wood is used for furniture, wooden footwear, toothpicks, and matchsticks.

http://www.hakka.gov.tw/Tung/