On February 17th, 2024, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO), Formosa Association of Student Cultural Ambassadors DC Chapter (FASCA DC), Taiwan Fun, and the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning (TCML) of the Washington DC Taiwanese School successfully hosted a fun-filled Lunar New Year Festival event at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum (DAR Museum), located in the capital of the United States. This family friendly celebration of Lunar New Year tradition featured games, activities and performances. The event introduced mainstream society to the four traditional customs of the Taiwanese Lantern Festival: Dong Han Dan (東寒單), Nan Feng Pao (南蜂炮), Xi Qi Gui (西乞龜), and Bei Tian Deng (北天燈). Bei Tian Deng, referring to the sky lantern, was the highlight of the event. In the Pingxi (平溪) area of Taiwan, releasing sky lanterns has become a unique traditional custom that continues to thrive. Pingxi holds an annual Lantern Festival where sky lanterns, inscribed with people's wishes, are released into the sky as a way to send messages to the divine. Many children at the event enjoyed painting sky lanterns and learning to write their wishes in Mandarin.

Many also showed great interest in the Jiaobei (筊杯) activity. Jiaobei, also known as "Moon Blocks", are wooden divination tools used in pairs and thrown to seek divine guidance in the form of yes or no questions.

The event also launched a creative version of the "grabbing the first incense" (搶頭香) activity, attracting the attention and participation of many visitors. This allowed the traditional Taiwanese customs to perfectly combine with modern innovation.

The DAR Museum stated that the success of this wonderful event not only helps promote Taiwanese culture internationally but also provides mainstream society with an opportunity to deeply understand Taiwanese traditional culture and customs. They also thanked all volunteers for their support and participation, looking forward to hosting more similar cultural exchange activities in the future.

• OCAC News