High school students shout out “I’m a grown-up now”
New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu hosted the event “Ride to Celebrate Coming-of-Age, New Taipei City” today. He use the quote “ride when you still can” from the movie Go Grandriders to encourage students to accept challenges of their lives and to be determined to pursue their goals.
650 students from 9 different schools participated in the ceremony, which was held at East Coast Plaza of Bitan, Xindian District of New Taipei City. Several performances were scheduled at the beginning of the event. Mayor Chu then conducted a ‘tuojuan’ ritual. In Taiwanese tradition, ‘xijuan’ was the ritual where parents would wish for blessing in a temple and hang a ‘juan’, an antique coin or a silver medal together with a red string, on the neck of kid. When the kid reached 16, she would attend ‘tuojuan’ ritual to remove the ‘juan’ from her neck, and give her thanks to deities for their blessing for the past years.
Chu said that people have different pursuits at different stages of life. “Kids learned to stand up, to walk, and to run. Teenagers learned to be a grown up. At age of 17 and 18, one should learn to accept challenges, to take responsibilities, and to overcome difficulties,” said Chu. “By riding 80 kilometers or 100 kilometers to celebrate the Coming-of-Age, it would make a good start for another page of everyone’s life.”
The organizer said that other than the original 80-kilometer ride, a 100-kilometer challenge was added to the event. Mayor Chu gave certificates to challengers representing their schools. In conjunction with the National Aboriginal Athletic Competition on March next year, officials also used facial tattoo, an Atayal tradition for warriors, to acknowledge these challengers’ courage and attitude.
The riding competition began right after Mayor Chu fired the starting pistol. Teams from different school took turns to start from Bitan and travelled along Xindian River, Dahan River, Tamsui River, and turned back at Bali Environmental Education Center. Those challenging 100 kilometers would continue and turn back at Taipei Harbor. The top three teams were awarded with bookstore coupons.