Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-10-22
President Tsai Ing-wen participated in Taipei’s 30th annual Hakka Yimin Festival on
President Tsai Ing-wen speaks about her roots at the 30th annual Taipei Yimin Festival on Sunday. (CNA photo)
Sunday. She spoke about how she is living proof that a Hakka woman can become president.
Tsai also pledged to support the Hakka people, saying that her government was injecting more than NT$10 billion (about US$330 million) into Hakka-related projects. She spoke about the government’s plan to promote Provincial Highway 3 as the “Romantic Hakka Avenue”. The goal is to boost the economy and promote the ecology and culture of 16 Hakka towns along the route.
About a quarter of the people in Taiwan consider themselves Hakka. Although they are ethnically Han Chinese, the Hakka people identify themselves by their shared language, history and culture.
President Tsai also took the opportunity to speak about her administration’s efforts to promote Hakka culture. She spoke about a new Hakka radio station which launched in June, and about the Cabinet’s efforts to make the Hakka dialect an official language in Taiwan. [FULL STORY]