Biennial Festival "Nanying International Folklore Festival (NYIFF)", which has built its considerable popularity since 1996 and invites folk dance teams from all around the world to present, will be held from Oct. 8th to 16th. Folk performing arts teams from different continents including Japan’s Onidaiko, Italy, Russia and the Republic of Korea are participating in the event and will bring you 9 consecutive days of wonderful performances. Meanwhile, this year’s result for the recruitment of foreign language tour managers is released. Please check out the results on our theme websites as well as Facebook.

In order to assist each country’s team in going on a tour and also for more in-depth cultural exchanges with our friends, tour managers on behalf of the pioneers of international exchange are believed to be the most indispensable hero behind the scenes. This year’s second stage of interview was taken place on September 10th and 11th, the number of applicants being more than a hundred. For sake of prudence, the Cultural Affairs Bureau specially invited foreign language committee members (Whose native language included English, Turkish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, Czech and Russian) to test applicants’ abilities in foreign language and occasional translation by letting them arrange a Tainan-one-day-tour as a tour manager. This would test applicants’ crisis management, communication and coordination skills and their acquaintance with the local culture of Tainan. After two days of interviews and discussions, 36 applicants are officially enrolled as a tour manager. Pre-departure training will be conducted on October 4th and 5th.

The Cultural Affairs Bureau indicated that tour managers along with the team not only operate schedules but also serve as the VIP during the event. Although the event lasts merely 9 days, it is not surprising that “anything could happen” according to previous experiences. For example, Ms. Liu, who served as the tour manager two years ago, mentioned there was once an embarrassment that occurred to the Filipino team of which she was in charge—one of the members forgotten his gongs and drums. Fortunately, there was a temple beside the venue. Ms. Liu then borrowed the instruments from the temple so that the performance can be carried out smoothly. This was a very rare experience that Taiwanese and Filipino instruments were played together. Furthermore, there once was one time that the whole team refused to head for the arranged venue owing to fatigue. In this case, the tour manager should persuade the team as well as contact with the venue for subsequent issues. The work of a tour manager is undoubtedly important.

The Cultural Affairs Bureau pointed out that although it is likely to be faced with an endless stream of problems, most of the tour managers become friends with their team members after the 9-day event; they altogether have to cope with a bunch of unexpected situations, thus making their life experiences grow more. Therefore, there are always past members coming back to help. They cultivate more experiences and go on sustaining the 20-year-old big family.