Water-splashing Festival is coming soon. In the Southeast Asian countries, like Thailand and Myanmar, this traditional custom of splashing water means to wash away all the misfortune in the past year and start anew in a new year. Water is the mother of life. During this wave of campaign calling for water conservation, the Taichung City Government takes the opportunity of Water-splashing Festival to urge everyone to cherish water and all the precious natural resources. The Water-splashing Festival will be held at Feng Le Sculpture Park (豐樂雕塑公園) at 10:00 on April 14 (Sunday).In addition to the exotic New Year Festival from Southeast Asia, there will be ethnic cuisines from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. A lottery event will be also held to give out such prizes as Asus Tablet PC and bicycles. All our citizens and foreign friends are cordially invited to participate.
To make the event even more attractive, the Labor Affairs Bureau will give out NT$50 food voucher to each of the first 4000 people that will have successfully passed through the checkpoints. Each of the first 600 participants will be given a beautiful water gun. In addition to the exotic delicacies, the event will also include free exotic painting DIY, “Southeast Asian cultural centers (東南亞文化館)”, and “Taichung Art Star Show (臺中藝國星光幫)". It is hoped that every participant will enjoy the cuisine, cultural exchanges, and talent competition offered in this international feast.
Taichung City Government has already positioned the Water-splashing Festival this year as a civilized water-splashing event in which less water will be thrown by a good overall coordination of the sprinkler equipment, time control, water sources, and water recovery for green land irrigation. It is hoped that the Water-splashing Festival can serve to promote the water-saving concepts as well.
Lai Shu-huei (賴淑惠), Director-general of Labor Affairs Bureau, said, “There are more than 60,000 foreign workers living in Taichung City, ranked among the top three in Taiwan. Most of them come from four countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. To help relieve their homesickness this year, we will cooperate with Chunghwa Telecom to offer a discount hotline program so that our foreign friends can call home to greet their families on this special occasion. We also would like to take advantage of this Water-splashing Festival to promote the water conservation and love-the-earth concepts to the public and our foreign friends. It is hoped that together we can enhance the multicultural tolerance and caring and project the Greater Taichung as a happy international city.”