National Hakka Day
Next: December 28, 2026
Speak your mother tongue out loud.
The story
Where it comes from
Taiwan's National Hakka Day marks 28 December 1988, when Hakka associations and the founders of Hakka Fengyun magazine led thousands of people on a peaceful march in Taipei for their language. Under the Mandarin-only policy of the time, Hakka was kept out of schools and restricted on film and television; the 'Return My Mother Tongue' march asked for Hakka programmes and an open, multilingual language policy. The Hakka Affairs Council moved National Hakka Day to this date in 2022, choosing a modern civic milestone over a folk festival.
How it's celebrated
Councils, schools and community groups across Taiwan hold events in Hakka: bayin ensemble concerts, lion dances, storytelling and singing by schoolchildren, markets, and a concert at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall where the 1988 march began. The aim is simply to hear Hakka spoken, sung and celebrated in public. Anyone can join in by learning a Hakka greeting from a friend.
Did you know
- From 2011 the day was Sky Mending Day, the 20th day of the first lunar month, when Hakka families rest in honour of the goddess Nüwa, who repaired the sky; it moved because mainly northern Hakka communities keep that custom.
- Taiwan's Hakka Affairs Council describes itself as the world's first central-government agency for Hakka affairs.
- Taiwan's Hakka Basic Law names Hakka as one of the country's national languages.
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