2005 台灣文化節特刊

President’s Forwards

Welcome to the Taiwanese Culture Festival! This event, organized by Taiwanese American Fed­eration of Northern California, is to highlight the celebration of the Taiwanese American Heritage Week and the Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month of May proclaimed by former President Clinton and President Bush, respectively. We are proud to present the genuine and beautiful part of Taiwanese culture at Union Square, which is the top rated location in Northern California.

Taiwan is an island located in the subtropical region at the south-west comer of Pacific Ocean, has a population of 23 million diligent people. According to the history it was inhabited about two thousand years ago, but began to have the written record in the last four hundred or so years. Prior to the mid-20th century Taiwan was mainly an agriculture society with some hand craft industry. However, with the rise of the global interest in the electronic industry Taiwan seized the opportunity and took off her industrialization in the 1970’s. She is now a fully industrialized, free and democratic country and is the 14th largest trading power in the world.

Due to the geological location and historical evolvement Taiwan has developed her unique and diverse civilization that is a mixture of the traditional agriculture and modem high-tech cultures, the aboriginal people and several different generation immigrants’ cultures and the continental and ocean-oriented cultures. The main theme of our culture festival this year is “Taiwan the beautiful.” It features whole-day-long continuous performances of the traditional Taiwanese folk dances, dramas, chorus and martial arts on the central main stage. It also offers various kinds of exhibitions from ancient Taiwanese arts, handicrafts and artifacts to the modem high-tech developments. Moreover, a total of 4 booths are offering the exotic Taiwanese delicacies. You will also see the shows of Taiwanese folk religion, the folk games, fortune telling imitator, old fashioned street merchants, etc. around the Square from time to time.

We have been sponsoring the Taiwanese Culture Festival every year for more than a decade. All the previous ones were held in the South Bay Area. This year is our first time holding it in San Francisco. Strong emphasis is placed upon sharing our culture heritage with more international visitors. Many thanks to the City officials who offered their valuable help to us. We are very grateful to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office for its support in providing exhibition materi­als and technical assistance in many aspects. Our deep and sincere appreciation should go to all the people who made generous donations, and all the volunteers who worked so hard in the past few months to help make this event possible.

Alvin Shih President, Taiwanese American Federation of Northern California

Posted in 2015/07