Wednesday, May 7th, 2008...12:53 am
Tainan celebrates freedom with the Koxinga cultural festival
347 is a special number, Buddha knows why, so Tainan decided 347 years for Koxinga’s conquest of Taiwan is a good occasion for a grand event to celebrate freeing the island from the Dutch. Koxinga, otherwise known as Cheng Kung (/Gong) is an extremely important figure in Tainan, almost if not already at the position of a local God. The festival was taking place in his big and beautiful Koxinga shrine.
A new statue of Koxinga was unveiled in front of the shrine.
The magical dragon pond next to the shrine hosted an arts fair and a series of Taiwanese traditional cultural events, like this adorable puppet show with Gods doing Kong Fu at each other.
The hall next to the shrine had some info and exhibition.
At the back the kids were having fun with some of the volunteers.
Wonderful.
Koxinga is the Southern-Fujianese (閩南語 Minnan Yu, well I know a lot of people in Taiwan prefer calling it 台語 or Taiwanese, but the fact is that it was derived in southern Fujian Province and even now there are much more so-called “Taiwanese” population in mainland China than in Taiwan Island. Funny?) pronunciation for 國姓爺 “Guo Xing Ye” in Mandarin, which means the “Lord with the National Surname”. Why? That’s because Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 (that’s his original name) was ever bestowed by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty with the name 朱 Zhu，the family-name of the royal house of the Ming Dynasty, in prizing him for his efforts in resisting the invasion of the Manchurians.
Hey bob - thanks for the explanation. You’re another Israeli China/Taiwan fanatic?