On June 23, Gu Show-faye, Minister of the Hakka Affairs Council (HAC), visited the Taiwan Fenghezi Association in Hsinchu County on an invitation by National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), where she participated in the Phase II Signing Ceremony and Achievement Presentation of the Literary Walking in Hsinchu initiative. Minister Gu remarked that when young people take on the mission to pass down and preserve Hakka traditions, businesses get the chance to learn more about local culture, and both parties will certainly set the stage for limitless development possibilities in Hakka villages.
The Literary Walking in Hsinchu program was launched upon the signing of an agreement between the organizer, NTHU, and VisEra Technologies Company Limited on August 8, 2024. The latter invested a total of NT$1.8 million in the initiative, a collaboration between NTHU’s Regional Innovation Center, undergraduate programs of its College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and local organizations. The first phase saw the planning of five walking routes combining literary themes such as Hsinchu’s predecessor—Tek-kham, Hakka culture, and indigenous culture, as well as the development of the Walking in Hsinchu app that offers GPS navigation, multimedia tours, interactions, and history. Users can take photos and upload along with comments to the app to leave a record of their journey.
The five routes planned in the first phase include: “Qing Dynasty Scholars’ Road to Success”, where visitors can experience a day in the life of a Qing-era aspiring scholar-official in the streets of Hsinchu; “Relaxed Ride on dungˋ hoiˊ fud”, a bike route traversing rice fields that holds lessons on the history of Hakka people and irrigation canals; “In Search of Nanpu’s Century-Old Irrigation Canals”, that offers stunning sceneries and a fascinating blend of Hakka and indigenous cultures in the Daping River basin; “Survey of Yuemei Fluvial Terrace”, with immense significance to the history of export goods in the Japanese colonial era; and “Matai Historic Trail in Jianshi”, a peek into the ecosystem of indigenous pathways.
The second phase of the program has NT$2.05 million in funds, provided by five companies: VisEra Technologies Company Limited, Nuvoton Technology Corporation, SYNTEC Group, Zyxel Group, and LOTES Co. Ltd., as well as the Hsinchu City Cultural Foundation. In the coming four years, the program will establish 30 walking routes across 16 townships in Hsinchu. HAC hopes that an increasing number of local Hsinchu organizations and businesses support the program. This will enable more employees who come work in Hsinchu from other places to identify and fall in love with Hsinchu’s cultural landscape and Hakka society.
