At the August 20 opening ceremony for one of the 12 main Hakka festivals-2016 National Hakka Yimin Festival, Hsinchu County Magistrate Chiu Ching-chun, council speaker Chang Chen-rong, Minister of the Hakka Affairs Council Li Yong-de, legislator Li Wei-chou and others carried loads on poles and burned incense to worship ancestors. Amidst the sound of gongs and drums and a three-gun salute, the 2016 National Hakka Yimin Festival was officially launched.
This year’s performances were diverse and splendid. The various drum and flag formations gathered in the square at Yimin Temple and there was a stunning hour long performance from Baozhong Yimin Temple. In the evening, Xinpu Yimin Temple’s Hakka Yimin Night-Folk Songs of Praise for the Yimin Concert and Folk Song Carnival Concert showed the connection between Hakka music and the era of campus folk songs, presenting a beautiful musical feats campus folk songs and Hakka music. This grand event attracted around 5000 people. Mayor Chiu handed out around 1000 Yimin lucky charms one by one, hoping to give people happiness, safety and joy.
Magistrate Chiu said that the Yimin Festival has a wide scope of worship and large number of participants and is a symbol of long history and culture and local social participation. The Hakka Yimin Festival of the 20th day of the seventh lunar month is the main religious event of Hakka areas. In recent years, the county government has combined the festival, culture and tourism, adding more diversity and vitality to Yimin belief. It makes Hsinchu Yimin Festival the most striking religious event of Hsinchu County.