In the Philippines, the Diabolo Dance Theatre will perform on 10 and 11 October in Makati and Binondo in Manila for Filipinos to enjoy the infusion of the ancient folk acrobatic performance and elements of modern arts from Taiwan.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen (left) and Dr. Jose Rizal, the founding fathers of Taiwan and the Philippines, had many semblances in their crusade to make a nation.
Ten October (Double Ten) is the national day of Taiwan, which commemorates the start of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising in China.
While the Double Ten Day commemorates the overthrow of the Manchurian Qing dynasty and founding of the Republic of China, one of the earliest constitutions and republican governments in Asia after the First Philippine Republic in 1899, it is now celebrated in Taiwan, rather than mainland China where the communists established the People's Republic of China in 1949.
A significant person in the founding of modern China is Dr. Sun Yat-sen, also known as the Father of the ROC.
Like Dr. José Rizal, considered as "Father of the Philippines", Sun was also born in the 1860s; they were both educated in western countries: Rizal in Spain and Sun in Hawaii.
They both studied medicine and worked as a doctor: Rizal in Hong Kong and Sun Macau; and they were both nationalists, reformists and propagandists.
According to historian Dr. Reynaldo C. Ileto, then-President Noynoy Aquino noted a photograph of Sun and Filipino revolutionary Dr. Mariano Ponce in Yokohama, Japan, in his address to the Filipino-Chinese community in celebration of Philippine Independence Day in 2015:
"What Aquino highlights in this photograph is the pairing of two earth-shaking events: the Philippine Revolution against Spain in 1898 and the Chinese republican forces' Xinhai Revolution against the Qing Dynasty in 1911."
According to Ileto, Ponce was in Yokohama to represent the Filipino republic and secure Japanese arms and other support against US invasion.
Sun was there for similar reasons: Seek Japanese assistance and establish ties with the Filipinos.
Records have it that, with the aid of Sun Yat-sen, Ponce obtained support from the Japanese military and a few Japanese politicians to enter into agreement to purchase arms and ammunition in the Spring of 1899.
In 1899, the ill-fated Japanese vessel Nonubiki Maru left Nagasaki for the Philippines loaded with 10,000 rifles, 6,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and then some.
The ship sunk in a typhoon, and a second attempt was stymied by American blockade.
It is said that, after the second shipment attempt failed, the arms were given to Sun, who believed that, if the revolution in China was to succeed, aiding the Philippines in return would be made easier.
Nowadays, Taiwanese people both at home and abroad celebrate the Double Ten Day.
In the Philippines, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office also invites the Diabolo Dance Theatre to perform on 10 and 11 October in Makati and Binondo, Manila, respectively, for Filipino audience to enjoy the infusion of the ancient folk acrobatic performance and elements of modern arts from Taiwan.
In Taiwan, a national day celebration will be held in Tainan Air Base on 8 October; many people will attend the national-day parade in front of the Presidential Office Building on 10 October, and there is a national-day fireworks ceremony in Taichung on the same day, among various events and activities around the country.
Last year, the famous Japanese Kyoto Tachibana High School Band, fondly called Orange Devils, was invited to the National Day parade in Taipei, where President Tsai Ing-wen and over 1,000 audience watched 93 high school students bring 13-minute eye-opening, well-trained, delightful and perfectly organized marching performance to Taiwan.
This year, except for the Taipei Municipal Chien-Kuo Boys' Senior High School Marching Band, which got the second place in the World Association of Marching Showbands Championship 2023 in West Virginia, US, the organizer also invites Emerald Knights, the marching band from the Tokyo University of Agriculture's Second High School and the Solid Gold Sound of the UCLA Bruin Marching Band to perform in the national-day parade.
Moreover, the first domestically developed T-5 Brave Eagle advanced jet trainers of Taiwan's Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. will fly in V-formation passing the grandstand to show the achievement of Taiwan's homemade jet trainers in the parade.
