Lai She-jen, director of the Tourism Bureau, told a press conference that the upcoming Taiwan Lantern Festival will take place in the hometown of President Chen Shui-bian from Feb. 21 through March 2.

Lanterns will take the shape of a rat to welcome the Year of the Rat. The rat lantern will be 18 meters high, weigh 25 metric tons, and located in Solar City, on land area of 7.5 hectares in the Southern Taiwan Science Park, Lai said.

The festival will be sponsored by the Chunghua Telecom Co., Ltd., and state-of-the-art optoelectronics technologies will be applied to give the entire event a scientific and technological touch, with LED lightbulbs widely adopted at the festival.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Bureau will prepare over 100,000 small lanterns for children. Such lanterns will be given to visitors free of charge, starting on the afternoon of Feb. 21, Tourism Bureau officials said.