Taipei citizens and tourists enjoy the flowers and garden at Shilin Official Residence.

Taipei Holiday Flower Market, calligraphers painted the square with their brushes.

The Spring Festival is the traditional festival with the most Chinese cultural characteristics, which best reflects the spiritual pursuit and life emotions of the Chinese. As a Chinese society, the people of Taiwan, who have a long-standing ritual during the Spring Festival, are reflected in respecting heaven and law in their ancestors, loving themselves and loving others, and also in peace, enjoying and benefiting, and following the way. This Spring Festival holiday, Taiwan has been on sale from January 25 to February 2, which has a total of 9 days. The people on the island are very happy because they have more time to prepare New Year’s goods, more time to go home and reunite, and more time to choose to travel and "go to the spring".

Follow the fire to stay up to the New Year

On the eve of the New Year, every household cleans up the courtyard and clears the house. On New Year's Eve, every household will worship their ancestors and worship God. On New Year's Eve, the family gathers around the fire to stay up to the New Year, share family affection, and chats around the family, but they are more happy than countless things in the world. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, I went to the palace temple to grab the first incense. My daughter returned to her parents' home on the second day of the Lunar New Year. On the third day of the Lunar New Year, I visited relatives and friends to pay New Year's greetings to each other. On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, I welcomed the God of Wealth. There is a set of rituals during the New Year, and most people follow it.

"The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have the same traditional customs, and the Spring Festival is the most important. At this time, no matter how far away from home, the wandering children will come back and have a reunion New Year's Eve dinner with their elders." Deng Daixian, Secretary-General of the Taiwan Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Exchange Association, told reporters. In the past, the New Year’s Eve dinner was cooked by the elders at home. Now life is fast. In order to save trouble, many people choose to buy a full set of New Year’s dishes from a restaurant to go home, or simply choose to stay in the restaurant around the fire, but the sophisticated families will still prepare it themselves.

Incorporating beautiful meanings into the meal is a reflection of traditional Chinese folk culture. According to Zhu Zhenfan, a well-known food writer in Taiwan, Taiwan is an immigrant society, and the ancestors of the people come from all over the mainland, so the New Year's Eve dining table combines a variety of flavors. On the New Year's Eve table of Taiwanese people, there will always be fish that symbolize "surplus every year", shrimp that "live a hundred years old", dumplings that "give wealth and treasure", rice cake that "rise every year", pig's trotters that "wealthy and great fortune", and radish cake that is homophonic to the Minnan language "good luck head". "The deliciousness on the tip of the tongue is actually the strong homesickness in people's hearts," said Zhu Zhenfan.

Appreciate flowers and explore the spring

During the Spring Festival holiday, many families on the island will also help the elderly and children to go out to "go to the spring", or go to the Palace Museum in Taipei to see the "Year Festival Festival - the essence of the cultural relics in the collection of festivals" to take a look at the changes in the timing and festival customs closely related to our lives; or go to the Shilin Official Residence, Huadong Long Valley, Yangming Mountain, and Alishan to bathe in the warm spring sun, and enjoy the flowers in the spring.

This Spring Festival holiday, many Taiwanese people chose to take the train to visit the "Flower East Valley" between the Central Mountains and the Coastal Mountains, and lingered in the sea of ​​flowers. From Luye, Guanshan, and Chishang in Taitung County to Fuli, Yuli and Shoufeng in Hualien County, nearly 100 kilometers of vast countryside is an important rice cultivation area in Taiwan. It is usually a green rice field landscape. However, during the winter fallow from December to January and February of the following year, farmers mostly plant rapeseed in the rice fields as green manure plants. Therefore, from mid-January, the large sea of ​​rapeseed flowers in bloom has become an extremely charming and wonderful scenery in Huadong Mountain Valley. Although the little yellow flowers are inconspicuous, when the rapeseed fields stretch into the sky one by one, a golden and brilliant scene is formed, which is set against the blue sky, white clouds, green mountains and clear waters, and outlines a pastoral scenery that is unique and unparalleled. In order to make the winter vertical valley landscape more colorful, in recent years, some farmers have also added to plant colorful cosmos in addition to growing rapeseed to create more diverse landscapes, flower sea views.

Walking on the street with lanterns

When you are at night, from the west gate to the north gate, you will walk along Zhonghua Road. The fire trees and silver flowers are filled with brilliance, making people dazzled. People watch lantern festivals, guess riddles, carry lanterns and walk on the streets, enjoy a family and enjoy a feast of traditional Chinese culture. Interestingly, lantern festivals in Taiwan start before the Spring Festival and continue until after the Lantern Festival. This year's Taipei Lantern Festival was officially launched on February 2, but the "urban light corridor" was lit up in advance as early as January 24, adding joy to Taipei's New Year and attracting the people to "go to spring" to drive crowds in business circles. Taipei City Deputy Mayor Lin Yihua said that the theme of this year's Lantern Festival is "Snakes come to operate", with colorful auspicious clouds surrounding the blessed snake as the core of visual design, bringing "successful and smooth" New Year blessings to everyone. Ximending, where the exhibition venue is located, is a gathering place for traditional and trendy culture, and the main lamp "Fu Snake Doudou" is set in the square in front of Zhongshan Hall. The curator introduced that this year's main light design breaks through the tradition, constructs snake body patterns with colorful colors and geometric figures, and integrates lights and special effects, especially the agile snake eyes, will add more fun to the main light show. This main lamp, which combines historical culture and trendy elements, will inject a fashionable atmosphere into the historically significant Taipei Zhongshan Hall.

In conjunction with the Taipei Lantern Festival, neighboring business districts and palaces have made strange moves to launch photography competitions, riddle rings, and light sea tunnels. We hope to showcase Taipei's unique urban charm and leave unforgettable memories for the people and tourists.

The 2025 Taiwan Lantern Festival will be held in Taoyuan City from February 12 to 23. With the theme of "Light Gathering Thousands of Ponds and Traveling in Taoyuan", two major exhibition areas, "Main Lamp Exhibition Hall" and "Light Game Field". Among them, the main light "Pirate the Wings" is inspired by navigation and flying, showing the vigorous vitality of Taoyuan. Before the Lantern Festival, various lantern festivals will be held in various parts of Taiwan. Although the scale is different, it is also exciting!

(People's Daily Overseas Edition Taipei, February 4)