The fame of Tainan Mangos spreads far and wide. On June 22, 18 delegates from Tainan’s Japanese friendship cities, including Deputy Mayor Ashizawa Eiji of Fujinomiya City in Shizuoka Prefecture, Vice Town Mayor Kasagi Junji and Speaker Ono Shoichi of Minakami Town in Gunma Prefecture, participated in the opening ceremony of the 2019 International Mango Festival.
Tainan City Mayor Huang Wei-che invited them to attend activities such as DIY vegetable-and-fruit-based burgers and a mango fishing game after the opening ceremony. In the following welcome banquet, not only seasonal limited mango meals were arranged as special treats, but also mango ties and dried mangos were presented by Mayor Huang to the guests, in the hope that the guests can fully experience the charm of mangos and further deliver the charm to more Japanese friends. The guests were joyfully stunned by tasting and seeing a great number of mangos in one day for the first time.
Fujinomiya City and Tainan City signed the friendship cities agreement in the 2017 International Mango Festival. The leader of the delegation then, Fujinomiya City Mayor Sudo Hidetada, planted a mango tree in the Celebrities Mango Orchard at the time. It is the third visit of Fujinomiya City’s delegation; they specifically went to the orchard to take a photo with the mango tree planted by Mayor Sudo and enjoyed the fun of picking mangos. Since signing the friendship cities agreement with Tainan in 2013, Minakami Town has been actively taking part in Tainan’s large events including the Tainan International Mango Festival and the Tainan International Travel Fair every year. The townspeople are lovers of Tainan’s mangos and have placed orders for 4 consecutive years. Despite the small population of nearly 20,000 citizens, the order quantity has reached 600 boxes this year. The guests unanimously said that mangos in Tainan City are extremely alluring and that they are looking forward to the trip next year.
The 2019 International Mango Festival runs from June 22 to July 14, starting by the opening ceremony held in Tsou Ma Lai Farm on June 22 and 23. Theme activities, which involve mango ice cream, cuisine, baking, touring, picking, and so on, will be conducted in Yujing, Danei, Nanxi, Guantian, Nanhua, Zuozhen and other production regions in turn every weekend; all are welcome to be part of the festival! The date and information of activities are detailed at https://mango.farm.com.tw/.