Fujian's 390-meter rice noodle sets record in Hsinchu, Taiwan

HSINCHU, Taiwan -- A new rice noodle record was set in Hsinchu City Saturday morning, as more than 300 students and hundreds of tourists joined hands with the staff of a rice noodle factory to pull strands of freshly-made rice noodles from the factory all the way to the 390-meter mark at a downtown crossroad.
Hsinchu City is celebrating its annual Rice Noodle and Meatball Festival, a tourism promotion event that features two well-known local delicacies, this weekend.
The technique for making the popular processed rice noodles was brought to Hsinchu more than a century ago by Hakka emigrants from the southeastern China's coastal Fujian Province.
Hsinchu, Tablecloth with its river and strong monsoon winds, proved an ideal location for making rice noodles.
Hsinchu rice noodle became famous more than 50 years ago when a cluster of factories know as “the Rice Noodle Village” began turning out most of the island's rice noodle production. In the following years, Hsinchu rice noodles have also made it onto overseas markets.
Although the number of factories has shrunk since the production process was made fully automated, some 20 of them have grown in scale and Hsinchu City remains the island's center of rice noodle production.
Seven years ago,Napkins and placemats the city government decided to host a series of celebrations around the rice noodle theme in early Autumn when the Monsoon winds in the region could be felt getting stronger. Since then, the celebrations have always begun with the making of a record length of rice noodle. In 2003, hundreds of people joined the effort to challenge the 66.66-meter mark, and then the 88.88-meter length.
On Saturday morning, students from six schools and tourists successfully broke last year's record of 360 meters, with a new length of 390 meter stable napkins.
The program for the two-day festival includes a Chuchien Princess pageant, a Meat Ball baby pageant, and a painting competition for school children. In addition, more than 60 food stands are serving all kinds of local delicacies.