TAIPEI, Taiwan:- Caribbean carnival comes to this Asian nation for the first time ever on October 10.
O Brothaz, Black Reign International and Island Jam are partnering to stage an event dubbed Caribbean Carnival at The Wall at B1 200 Roosevelt Rd, Section 4, Taipei.
“We are going to try out best to recreate a street atmosphere,” Oliver Harley of the seven-year-old, tripartite organization told I Witness News.
He said that while the event will be an indoor one, the organizers would create a festive ambiance using costumes, face paint and authentic soca music.
The Jamaica-born Harley said that the event should ideally be an outdoor one but the group wanted to keep the first installment small and manageable.
He said that the organizer hope to make the event an annual activity as the population of Caribbean students here and participation increase.
Taiwanese have been responding positively to the Caribbean Carnival idea, he said.
The event has been promoted at universities in this city and the central Taiwan city of Taizhong and among “the party-going crowd”.
While the response from the Caribbean community here has been “fifty-fifty”, Harley is not deterred.
(Watch scenes from St. Vincent & the Grenadines carnival 2009 below.)
“You never know what will happen at the last minute, Caribbean style,” he said.
Harley said that Dreams Community, a group that organizes a Brazilian carnival here, would provide costumes for the event.
He said the event is an opportunity to unite Caribbean students here and to promote the region’s culture locally.
The organization and its members from Jamaica, Martinique, Belize and Japan have organized several reggae events around Taipei.
Harley said that a reggae beach party last June was a “big success”, attracting some 850 patrons.
This year, a reggae group from the Philippines will perform here.
He said that the intention is to ‘open the door for more acts from the Caribbean”, adding that a Jamaican artiste had expressed an interest in staging a show here.