The Ministry of Culture launched a literary walking tour on the tea culture embodied by New Taipei City's Pinglin District on April 23 to usher forth Taiwan's nationwide celebrations of World Book Day.
This year, the Ministry designated "Literary Walking Tours of Taiwan" as the theme for the celebration, with the aim of facilitating reading among Taiwan's citizens through walking tours to cultural and historical sites and hand-on experiences of participating in cultural activities.
Now entering its third year in Taiwan, World Book Day celebrations will be combined with the Ministry's "cultural routes" program this year. The four main routes are promoting the historic Taiwan Sugar Railways, Alishan Forest Railway, Taiwan's tea culture, and the revitalization of key historical sites.
The Pinglin tour on April 23 visited Green Light Tea Farm (綠光茶園), which is known for its organic cultivation; By TeaMaster Workshop (白青長茶作坊), an eco-conscious farm with five generations of history; and Pumpkin No. 3 Workshop (金瓜三號), whose young owners are highly praised for transforming the district's tea culture.
The Ministry hopes to inspire more local organizations to curate their respective "cultural route" programs. To this end, the Pinglin tour underscored onsite visits, expertise sharing, and opinion exchanges, all of which were designed to build upon one another and garner more feedback on such routes.
Pinglin is an important farm hill and tea production site in Taiwan that still retains its rustic tea culture and unique beauty today. Through visitations and readings, the walking tour opened the eyes of participants to a different side of Taiwan's tea culture and the local features of Pinglin.
The tour was set up to explore the future outlook of Taiwan's tea culture and cultural routes by collecting diversified opinions on citizen participation, regional literary creations, industrial development, localized business operations, and cultural promotion initiatives.
Vice Minister of Culture Lee Lien-chuan (李連權) was pleased to see many young people at the featured Pinglin sites helping local tea farmers transform their operations into ones brimming with local features. He stated his hopes for members of the younger generation to become role models in these regional revitalization projects, and help promote Taiwan's tea culture in overseas markets.
The Ministry will organize a second tour to Pinglin on April 30, with the ultimate goal of creating a comprehensive tea-themed cultural route with Taiwanese characteristics on the basis of more expert guidance combined with opinions from local industries and civilian groups.