Taiwan Day

I was very excited to participate in two different Taiwanese celebrations in May. First, the Taiwanese American Cultural Festival in San Francisco, and second, Taiwan Day with the Oakland A’s.

The Taiwanese American Cultural Festival happens in San Francisco’s Union Square on one Saturday each May. I can still remember the first time I saw this festival, being awed that our small community could have such a vibrant celebration in the center of the city. I think this year’s cultural festival was the biggest and best yet. There were many more vendors and makers than before, with interactive booths and plenty of delicious food. And the beautiful weather made for bustling crowds too.

I helped out with the TaiwaneseAmerican.org “book fair” booth organized by Leona and Ho Chie.

So fun to see some of my friends with their vendor booths! Yun Hai, giving away dried fruit and fruit preserve samples.

Felicia Liang with her beautiful illustrations, many of which are Taiwanese-themed.

Kimberly with her impeccable Formosa Chocolates creations.

And Jane Li with her cute, irreverent artwork.

Cassie and Leo came to visit the festival too, while Alex got a nice snack early in the day before the lines got too crazy.

Storytime with Margaret Greanias at the TaiwaneseAmerican.org booth!

So many friends came through too. All of these folks below attended the same summer camp in the Midwest, TAF.

A wonderful author’s panel led by bookstagrammer Amber.

Lunch break for the volunteers and authors!

More friends coming through: this family is friends with Shawna Yang Ryan! I photographed them with her book. And my friend Christina, who’s a makeup artist– wedding world connections!

I attended the Taiwanese summer camp out here (now TACL-LYF) one time nearly two decades ago and met all of these folks back then. I even photographed Anny and John’s wedding and probably haven’t seen them since then. So wonderful to see them all again.

A huge thanks to our authors, other volunteers, and especially Ho Chie for starting all of this and Leona for organizing this whole wonderful book fair!

Just a couple weeks after the TACF, we got to gather with a bunch of Taiwanese folks again for Taiwan Day with the Oakland A’s! (May is a very busy month for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.) Thank you to Leona for setting us up with VIP access for this very fun event.

We got VIP goodie bags, complete with Taiwanese mifen noodles, sandwiches, soy milk, and boba. Plus, these Oakland Taiwan jerseys. I also came wearing Alex’s A’s jersey, plus the special Taiwanese A’s hat that he got from last year’s Taiwan Day. Sadly Alex was sick and couldn’t attend.

Little red carpet for our VIP experience. Versus the crows making huge nests in the Coliseum. This is officially the last season the A’s will be playing in the Oakland Coliseum, as the owners have decided to move them to Vegas, but they’re actually going to a minor league Sacramento ballpark until they build a new stadium. Alas.

There were opening performances by rapper Dwagie and the TSG Hawks Wing Stars cheerleaders, plus a national anthem by ukulele artist Feng E.

We also got a welcome message for Taiwanese Heritage Day from the vice president of Taiwan, Hsiao Bi-khim. And a first pitch thrown by CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang. He stayed afterwards to sign autographs for quite a long time.

He even signed my Taiwan Day hat!

Hello Stomper! Attendance at these A’s games has been dismal ever since the owners stripped the team and abandoned Oakland. So our Taiwan section was definitely the majority of the attendees on this day.

Showing off our VIP passes and our signed swag.

And the A’s even won over the Astros! Baseball!

Brought back my swag to Alex.

So grateful for these wonderful celebrations of community! Visit TaiwaneseAmerican.org and follow them on instagram for more connections to the Taiwanese American community. 

Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.