Taiwanese Holidays/ Festivals

There are several holidays/ festivals in Taiwan, such as Qingming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day) and National Day. Below are just some holidays/ festivals that I enjoyed celebrating while I was there. 

• Mid-Autumn Festival || 中秋節 || Zhōngqiū jié

A time for family and friends to gather around the table. It is tradition to eat round-shaped food like moon cakes and pomelo (fruit) because the holidays also celebrate the moon goddess. In Taiwan, it is common to have BBQ. My friends and I had a potluck, and then we took a walk around campus to watch the moon. 

• Lunar New Year || 春節  || Chūnjié

Lunar New Year is to celebrate the new year in the lunar calendar. It is a time when families gather,  children are handed red envelopes of money, firecrackers are popped to scare off evil spirits, and more traditions. Some of my friends from NAU came to visit. I showed them around Taiwan, and we celebrated the holiday with hot pot and enjoyed the empty streets of Taipei. 

• Lantern Festival ||  元宵節 || Yuánxiāo jié

At night, people light lanterns with wishes drawn on them with black ink and release them into the sky to mark the end of Lunar New Year celebrations. My friends and I went and released our own lantern with New Year wishes on it. 

• Dragon Boat Festival || 端午節 || Duānwǔ jié

The holiday is to celebrate the life and the death of the famous Chinese scholar Qu Yuan. Wooden boats with Dragon heads on the bow and tails on the stern race each other, and rice dumplings (Zòngzǐ) are commonly eaten, these are just some of the traditions. NCU hosted a night to make Zòngzǐ, which are harder to make than they look. My friends and I also visited Taipei to watch the dragon boat races. 

Celebrating these holidays/festivals, especially with the guidance of my Taiwanese friends, helped me continue to immerse myself.  For all those years of reading about these holidays/festivals, I was grateful to be able to be a part of them.