Taiwan wants world heritage status for sky lantern festival

Jul 14, 2008, 14:19 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan wants to apply for world cultural heritage status for its sky lantern festival, but may meet obstacles as it is not a member of the United Nations, an official said Monday.

The Taipei County Government submitted the application to the Council for Cultural Affairs, or culture ministry, to forward to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), but the council said Taiwan cannot apply because it is not a UN members.

'We will keep trying and will also explore other channels. We are determined to get sky lantern declared as a Taiwan cultural heritage before South Korea has registered it as South Korea's cultural heritage,' Lee Hong-yuan, deputy magistrate of the Taipei County, told reporters.

He said Pusan City of South Korea sent a delegation to Taipei County in February to ask about the history of sky lantern and to videotape the Pinghsi Sky Lantern Festival, triggering fears that South Korea wants to apply for world heritage status for sky lantern ahead of China or Taiwan.

Sky lanterns originated in China nearly 2,000 years ago during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-316). Ancient Chinese released lit paper lanterns into the sky as military communication.

Nowadays Chinese and Taiwanese set off sky lanterns during the Lantern Festival to wish themselves and friends and relatives good luck, by writing their wishes on the outside of the paper lanterns.

The Pinghsi Sky Lantern Festival is held in Pinghsi outside Taipei on the 15th day of the first month in the Lunar New Year according to the Chinese calendar.

The 2008 Pinghsi Sky Lantern Festival drew 200,000 local and foreign tourists who saw tens of thousands of sky lanterns soar into the night sky.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee meets once a year to decide new entries to - or deletions from - the World Heritage List.

The List now numbers nearly 1,000 sites,from 145 countries. Most of them are cultural heritage sites, but some are natural sites and a few are mixed.