Southern Taiwan Events

The southern festival calendar is the most intense in Taiwan, and one of its events is genuinely unlike anything else in the world.

Yanshui Beehive Fireworks — Lantern Festival, February

Held at Yanshui in Tainan on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and often described as the most dangerous festival on earth. Enormous frames packed with tens of thousands of bottle rockets are wheeled into the crowd and fired horizontally into the participants, who stand and take it. The tradition dates from an 1885 cholera epidemic, when the town asked Guan Gong to drive out the plague and set off fireworks along the procession route; being struck by the rockets is understood to bring good fortune for the year. Participants wear motorcycle helmets with the visor taped, thick clothing, gloves and a towel around the neck, and injuries still occur every year. Protective gear is sold on site and is not optional.

Mazu pilgrimage and temple processions — third lunar month

Southern temples send palanquins and jiajiang troupes on processions through the spring, with painted generals, spirit mediums and continuous firecrackers.

Burning of the Wang Ye Boat — every three years, Donggang

A full-size wooden ship is built over months, paraded, loaded with offerings and burned on the beach at dawn to carry away plague and misfortune. The next cycles fall at three-year intervals and it is the great event of Pingtung.

Dragon Boat and Spring Scream

Races on Tainan’s canal in June, and Kenting’s long-running music festival over the April holiday weekend.