The dancing group from the Toronto Chapter of North America Taiwan Women Association (NATWA) gave a great performance in the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Festival held on June 20 at Kitchener’s Victoria Park. Their performance, including the traditional Hakka Tea-Picking Dance, won warm praise and applause from audience of many ethnic communities in attendance at the event, which amounted to a successful effort in promoting people-to-people diplomacy for Taiwan.
In every summer for 40 years, the annual Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Festival has celebrated ethnic diversity and all its wonders. This year, there were about 20 groups from different ethnic communities, among them Taiwan, Vietnam, India and Ukraine, invited to join the celebration. During two exciting days of the event, international cuisine, traditional folk song and dance, artifacts and crafts from around the globe were presented by those ethno-cultural groups and local community organizations. To introduce Taiwan culture to people in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, besides the Hakka dance presented by the Toronto Chapter of NATWA, a booth offering Bubble Tea and other Taiwanese drinks and cuisines was also set up by the Kitchener-Waterloo Taiwanese Canadian Association (KWTCA). The foods and dance performance, with their vivid Taiwanese cultural characteristics, attracted thousands of festival visitors.
Ambassador Rong-chuan Wu, Director General of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Toronto, was invited as a VIP guest. During his stay in the festival, DG Wu watched the performance of the Tea-Picking Dance by the Toronto Chapter of NATWA and visited the KWTCA booth. Ambassador Wu thanked members of NATWA, Toronto Chapter, and KWTCA for helping to promote Taiwan’s people-to–people diplomacy and to increase Taiwan’s international visibility.
