The fifth Liudui Hakka Harvest Festival will take place in Pingtung County from Oct. 31 through Nov. 8, Director-General Ho Chin-liang (何金樑) of Taiwan Hakka Culture Development Center (THCDC) announced at a press conference on Oct. 19.

Attending the press conference were officials of the governments of Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County and district/township representatives.

Under the collaboration between THCDC and 12 townships/districts of Kaohsiung and Pingtung, the festival has been held in the autumn annually at the Liudui Hakka Cultural Park since 2016.

Every autumn, visitors stream into the Hakka settlements in southern Taiwan to enjoy the festivities. Because it is popular with people, the festival has been selected as one of the national tourism events this year promoted by the Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation.

Ho noted that there are a series of activities for visitors at the festival, including preserving vegetables via the sun drying method, walking in colorful processions in folk costumes, attending an evening banquet to taste Hakka cuisine, and taking a day trip to explore Hakka villages in the Liudui region, that were designed based on Hakka traditions with ingenuity and creativity by the organizer Liudui Hakka Cultural Park.

There are six tourist routes for visitors to deeply explore Hakka villages through fruit picking and agricultural product making activities. Furthermore, the meticulously designed Liudui map puzzles, which can help people learn more about the Hakka settlements in southern Taiwan, will be given to tour participants as a souvenir to remember the holiday event.

Detailed information is available on the website of Liudui Hakka Cultural Park or the Facebook fan page https://www.facebook.com/I.LOVE.LIUDUI.HAKKA/.