The Netherlands Office Taipei and Tamsui Historical Museum conducted a joint event to celebrate the Dutch holiday Koningsdag (King’s Day).
The events start from today and will end until May 2 (Sunday). There will be limited souvenir giveaways for attendees wearing orange eligible.
King’s Day is a national holiday in the Netherlands. The holiday celebrates the birthday of the reigning Dutch monarch, Willem Alexander.
According to EXPATICA, the orange color honors the royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau. during the festival, so everything possible is covered in orange, from flags, wigs, and clothing to revelers’ faces.
The celebrations begin on King’s Day eve (King’s Night), and the alcohol and music don’t stop flowing for 24 hours.
In Taiwan, the Dutch holiday Koningsdag is also celebrated at Tamsui Fort San Domingo.
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According to TAIPEI TIMES, the joint event held at Tamsui offer free souvenirs for attendees wearing orange. The free souvenirs include USB drives with a tulip printed on the case, eco-friendly shopping bags, bookmarks with a depiction of Fort San Domingo, or ponkan-flavored ice pops.
The museum provides 10 of each to be given away each day. The souvenirs would be available to visitors at the fort’s souvenir shop.
To launch the event, the museum has dressed up its statue of former Dutch East Indies governor-general Antonio van Diemen in an orange hat, an orange cloak, and an orange bow tie, it said.
TAIPEI TIMES explains the fort was built by Spanish conquistadors in 1628, but later razed by the Spanish and rebuilt by the Dutch in 1642, museum director Huang Li-ling (黃麗鈴) said.
The Dutch called it Fort Antonio — after the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies — but residents called it the “Red Hair Fort” (紅毛城) since the Dutch are often referred to as “red-haired” people in Chinese.
Huang hopes to celebrate the Dutch Festival at Fort San Domingo given the origin of the fort. And also provide a chance for people to learn about the foreign culture since people are unable to travel abroad due to the coronavirus outbreak around the world.
More information about the six-day event can be found on the museum website here.
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