CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
Taiwanese officials look to build on ties between their nation and New England
PAWTUCKET – It’s Douglas Hsu’s job to promote Taiwan across New England. But on Saturday, most of the hard work of showcasing the southeast Asian island’s culture will be accomplished when dragon boats are in the water off Festival Pier and hundreds of Chinese dumplings are in bellies.
The director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston, or TECO, will be the guest speaker at the 19th annual Rhode Island Chinese Dragon Boat Races and Taiwan Day Festival in Pawtucket.
TECO functions in Boston as a consulate general of the government of Taiwan that enjoys all diplomatic privileges, tax exemptions, and other related privileges but without full diplomatic ties, it cannot be called a consulate. The Boston office is one of the 12 TECO offices located around the United States and it covers all of New England except for Connecticut.
TECO’s Boston office functions as a consulate by issuing visas, renewing passports, and working with state and local governments to promote relations to benefit trade between Taiwan and New England. Among the programs that promote cultural exchange, Hsu said, is the yearly festival in Pawtucket.
“The upcoming festival is one of the success stories here in Rhode Island. Nineteen years ago, they found that they had this passion to bring Taiwanese culture to Rhode Island,” Hsu recalled. “They set up this festival and found that the Taiwanese government can chip in to promote. We started to put in different elements every year, it attracts many a participant. We’ve been working with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council for the many years we’re a co-sponsor of this event.”
TECO in 2003 donated dragon boats to the event and following a visit to Taiwan last year by Lt. Gov. Daniel McKee, TECO is now working with local communities to raise funds for a new fleet of dragon boats just in time for the festival’s 20th anniversary in 2019.
“They told us they will use boats old and new for the general public if they’d like to rent or use,” Hsu said. “We try to do things for the local community. The Tourism Council gave me a tour on the old history of Pawtucket and the Blackstone River Valley. Even though people think that era is dying down, they found every opportunity for that resurrection. We want to help, we’ve developed a friendship.”
“We know that this coming Saturday, we’re going to make it a bigger event,” he continued. “We have some local Taiwanese communities training for so long and they’re ready to perform. The parents also prepared local cuisine to make the connection … We try to use this event as bait, we want to give you a taste of the Taiwanese cuisine.”
While this year is Hsu’s first attending the Pawtucket Dumplings2 festival, he said it is always a pleasure for TECO to promote the event.
“According to (Tourism Council President) Bob Billington, he told me this has become one of the signature events. I definitely want to see the people who come to celebrate with us...” Hsu said. “I definitely want to see the race itself and of course I’m going to bring my family down here. I want to make my children, who were born here in the United States and consider themselves more American than Taiwanese, make them more connected with this type of culture.”
“This is a very nice event, we’ve got a lot of support from the Taiwanese community in the Boston area, we have some Taiwanese restaurant owners who went all the way down to set up vendors and showcase the food, that’s a real appreciation of an effort to make this more attractive,” Hsu said.
Also, for the first time ever, TECO will have a team participate in the dragon boat races. “We hope they can have a good performance, but no matter what, this is going to be a very exciting event for them to be a part of this very meaningful event,” Hsu said.
The hugely-popular annual event on Saturday will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Festival Pier in Pawtucket. The day-long festivities are free to attend, and parking and shuttles will be located at the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center, 175 Main St. in Pawtucket.
The signature event features teams competing for prizes in the Eastern Regional Dragon Boat Association sanctioned rowing contests along the headwaters of Narragansett Bay.
This year, 28 teams from around the northeast will compete for large cash prizes. The races continue to use the colorful fiberglass Taiwanese-style dragon boats and uniquely incorporates the skill of flag-catching in each race. The course length is 1,000 feet long up the Pawtucket River, with three boats racing at a time. The Explorer will also offer special river cruises for $5 for those who want to get a closer look at the action.
Along with the Dragon Boat Races, Festival Pier will play host to the family-friendly Taiwan Day Festival, showcasing Asian culture.
The Taiwan Day Festival presents cultural entertainment with performances from the Chinese Folk Art Workshop, as well as their traditional Taiwanese arts and crafts tables. The festival also has a varied section of food trucks, vendors, contests, and interactive activities for children and families.
Once again, the popular Chinese dumpling eating contest will be held, with the winner receiving a roundtrip ticket to Taipei, Taiwan on EVA Air. New for 2018 is a jump rope contest for a chance to win a plane ticket to Taipei, Taiwan courtesy of China Airlines.
Hsu was promoted from deputy director to director-general in April and previously worked in Washington, D.C. as a Congressional officer. There, he said, New England “seemed so far away from Taiwan.”
“To my surprise after I arrived, I studied the data and realized there are a lot of already-connected relations between the states of New England and Taiwan,” Hsu said. “We are the second-largest nation market for Rhode Is- land behind China. In 2016, the total trade amount between China and Rhode Island was $160 million, but Taiwan is a small island economy and our total trade amount is $101 million. Even though we consider ourselves a small island country, we are very strong and trade with almost every part of the world. I see a lot of good opportunities here.”
“There are also many Taiwanese people who work in Boston, who are also very interested in trying to connect Taiwan with New England,” he added. “I see more opportunities in the future.”
Since taking the post in April, Hsu said he has two goals in mind: to raise Taiwan’s visibility in New England and to make Taiwan more relevant to the New England area.
“Taiwan is a small country, people oftentimes ignore the existence of Taiwan. For those people who travel or spend time, they know Taiwan is a very vibrant democracy,” he said. “We have a very healthy economy, we are very proud of those achievements and I want to showcase to our American friends that all of these achievements we have were because of the help and assistance provided by the U.S. back in the 1940s to 1970s.”
“In addition to the business ties, we have so many students who study here in this region. Percentage-wise, this is one of the most density of Taiwanese students in the region,” he said. “We know education makes a lot of difference … With those presence of students, they’ll be able to help us make Taiwan more relevant to the New England area.”