Both Children’s Day and the Qingming Festival highlight the importance of family, a central value in traditional Chinese culture. The tomb-sweeping festival began as a way for families to pay respect to the dead and has a long history of over 2500 years. Similarly, Children’s Day is a way to honor the promise of future generations. Since many Taiwanese have familial or ancestral ties to China, it is not surprising that many people in Taiwan today celebrate these traditions.
Governments, schools, and local communities often contribute in their own way to festivals in Taiwan. For example, Kaohsiung’s city government gave each student a themed DIY dragon lantern for this year’s Lantern Festival; the lantern's rotating face featured local mascots such as the Kaohsiung bear and the big yellow duck who visited Kaohsiung for the first time in ten years at the start of this year. Traditional holidays such as Lunar New Year, Children’s Day and Tomb-sweeping Day are also national holidays which means most schools and other government buildings are closed across the island, and public transportation runs on an alternative holiday schedule at these times. Particularly for the Lunar New Year, since most people are traveling to visit family, many cities can feel like ghost towns with museums, restaurants and other popular attractions shut down for the holiday. Even the banks are closed for an extended period, so welcoming the lunar new year often takes a bit more planning than writing spring couplets or decorating your apartment!
