The Jinmen City God Welcome Festival Also Goes “Tech-Savvy”: Real-Time Mobile Tracking for the Parade

▲ This year’s Jinmen City God cultural tourism season will feature a live online broadcast and real-time mobile tracking for the City God parade. (Photo / Provided by Kinmen County Government)

Tourism Center / Comprehensive Report

The “2015 Jinmen City God Welcome Festival & Wudao Religious Culture Tourism Season” will reach its climax on the 29th (the 12th day of the fourth lunar month) during the Wudao City God Parade and Blessing Ceremony. Deities and performance troupes from the four temples of Houpu will also join the parade. To this end, the Kinmen County Government will provide a live online broadcast, allowing friends from both home and abroad who cannot attend in person to witness this grand event.

The Kinmen County Government’s Tourism Department stated that, besides joining the parade to pray for blessings, visitors can also enjoy a variety of traditional and exciting performance troupes during the City God Welcome Parade, including float parades, human-powered centipede chariots, flower-beating rituals, “man-carrying-woman” acts, deity guards, Nanguan music, dragon and lion dances, and the Twelve Fairy Aunts, among others.

To enable those who cannot come to Kinmen on the day to participate as well, the Kinmen County Government has commissioned Mingcheng Cable TV to broadcast the event live on Channel 33 throughout the day. In addition, an “Welcome the City God Online” live webcast service will be provided. Friends from mainland China and around the world can watch the full event live at www.412.org.tw starting at 13:00 on the day of the event. The live stream is also available on mobile and tablet devices, along with real-time location tracking for the City God parade teams. The Tourism Department further noted that the Jinmen City God Welcome Parade has a history of 335 years, and traditional folk events should also leverage new technology to achieve more diverse breakthroughs.