It''s a tradition for Taiwan''s president to visit temples over Spring Festival, to give out red envelopes and scrolls for good luck. But now, as Taiwan faces a resurgence of the coronavirus, the tour has been canceled for the second year in a row. People can still collect lucky scrolls and envelopes, by paying a visit to their local DPP official.

She’s pleased as punch to receive a Spring Festival scroll issued by the Presidential Office. It comes with a lucky coin in an envelope. She’s at the office of a Taipei City councilor. Locals have been coming in all day to collect.

Ms. Kuo
Member of public
These are so hard to get, they’re very hard to get your hands on. I rode my bike here from Shuanglian market. I’m so lucky that they were available right here.

Mr. Chang
Member of public
You can’t get them elsewhere – you wouldn’t know where to get them. I hadn’t known they were here. If I had, I would have come earlier. I support President Tsai, and I support the DPP.

The councilor says that high demand for scrolls has created something of a headache.

Chen Yi-chun
DPP Taipei City councilor
I was here in the early morning handing out Spring Festival scrolls. Everyone is far too proactive. Even before the scrolls were delivered, lots of people were already asking about them. Some people came here to reserve them. There were even some folks who were in a quarantine hotel and couldn’t go out to get them, and they called us up and said, “Please leave two for me.” So we printed more copies ourselves. Then we asked the party headquarters to give us more copies when we ran out of money to print more.

Hsu Shu-hua
DPP Taipei City councilor
The DPP triumphed in the last few elections, and that’s inspired supporters of the DPP. And relatively speaking, everyone agrees that President Tsai has played a big role in these elections. So this year, everyone is trying to get these scrolls. There are also lucky envelopes and red envelopes. Demand is greater than supply, so we ask the Presidential Office to print some more, to ease our trouble. Otherwise, we’ll be sorry to our voters.

The councilor said her party’s success in the recent by-election, recall elections, and referendum has been inspiration for pan-green supporters, driving demand for the scrolls. This year the Presidential Office printed 260,000 scrolls, 250,000 red envelopes, and 330,000 lucky envelopes each containing a NT$1 coin. Traditionally, the president distributes them on a national tour over Spring Festival. But this year, the tour is canceled due to the pandemic. The scrolls and envelopes will be distributed by public officials instead.

Xavier Chang
Presidential Office spokesperson
In order to avoid gatherings, the president will not distribute red envelopes or lucky envelopes on tour this Spring Festival. The president’s holiday itinerary will be released before the Lunar New Year holiday, in line with precedent.

This is the second year in a row that the tour has been called off. Last year, due to COVID, President Tsai Ing-wen replaced the tour with visits to police, disease prevention staff, and other workers who had to work over the holiday.