120,000 parade at Taiwan Pride celebration despite rain
By Amy Peng / Staff reporter
Last Saturday, Taiwan’s main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) held its Pride parade in Taipei’s Zhongli Park with an estimated 1.7 million participants despite the inclement weather.
While the DPP started celebrating Pride last weekend, the parade began on its last day on Saturday, making it the longest-running Pride event in Taiwan.
The parade, which had a total of 13 floats and 11,000 participants, ended in a sea of people chanting “Love, love, love!” and “Sha Lo! Sha Lo!” at the end of a day that also saw a downpour causing participants to wet their shoes.
The parade was held despite rain and torrential-downpour rain from Saturday afternoon onward, organizers said.
The parade featured floats dressed in traditional costumes ranging from a man dressed as a girl to a man dressed as a horse. The participants also wore face paint, masks, and wigs for different events.
A group of people dressed as birds followed a man dressed as a dragon, and people in a float dressed as characters from the Taiwanese novel Taiwanese Lullabies.
Organizers distributed 50,000 roses to participants during the parade, said Wu Ming-hsun (吳鳴孫), a spokesperson for the DPP.
At the end of the parade, participants were given a special award to commemorate Pride.
Wu said Pride was also held in October last year and garnered more than 10,000 participants despite rain and torrential rainfall.
The previous parade attracted 3.2 million people and was the largest Pride celebration in Taiwan, according to organizers.
A total of 3,000 floats were used.
Taiwan’s biggest annual event, the Taipei Marathon, was held from Friday to Sunday. Organizers said the marathon was held despite heavy rainfall on Friday.
In the annual holiday carnival, 2.6 million people participated, organizers said.