What’s the secret to a happy marriage? The Taiwanese have the answer, and they serve a symbolic version of it at their wedding banquets. An appetizer platter that includes lobster is traditionally the first course because lobster in Mandarin “sounds exactly like deaf and blind”, says Charlie Wu, managing director of the Telus TaiwanFest.

“It’s a joke,” Wu explains by phone with a chuckle. “The couple needs to learn to overlook things”¦in order to be successful in a marriage.” It all boils down to see no evil, hear no evil. “If you have a quarrel, don’t listen to it [the harsh words],” Wu says. “If you see things you’re not supposed to see, just pretend you didn’t see it. You learn to be deaf and blind.”

Wedding celebrations, along with these words of wisdom, cross cultures. That’s why marriage is at the core of this year’s TaiwanFest, which takes place Saturday to Monday (September 5 to 7) at the Plaza of Nations and the Roundhouse Community Centre. The fest is celebrating its 20th anniversary and, as always, food will be a highlight.

Those interested in Taiwanese wedding dishes can watch a 15-minute documentary that goes inside the kitchen at three types of wedding banquets: a modern hotel celebration, Hakka-style festivities, and a street banquet. According to Wu, the latter will appeal to many Taiwanese people’s nostalgic side.

“It’s a neighbourhood type of gathering,” Wu says of the large outdoor community celebrations. “The etiquette about going to street banquets is much different than going to a hotel.” Street banquets are casual affairs where people can show up in their slippers. He notes that street banquets have become increasingly rare in Taiwan as young people have moved away from their home communities. “A lot of people miss that atmosphere.”

Wu says that even for Taiwanese Vancouverites today, the wedding banquet is more important than the smaller, more intimate ceremony. “They’re still very traditional,” Wu says of young couples. “They would go to their fortuneteller to tell them what time of day they’re supposed to get married.” Banquets follow the “bigger is better” rule, with larger numbers of guests imparting a higher social standing; Wu himself has attended local banquets with over a thousand dinner guests. “It’s very much like the street banquet idea,” he says. “You want all your friends and family to come.” In addition to hotels, popular venues include restaurants like Kirin Restaurant (various locations) and Shiang Garden Restaurant (2200–4540 No. 3 Road, Richmond).

Chefs from Taiwan who are skilled in preparing traditional banquet dishes will be doing cooking demos at TaiwanFest. They’ll also put a full 10-course spread on display that includes symbolic dishes like Inseparable Union, made from sticky taro root paste and tapioca, which represents the bond between bride and groom. A chef from the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel will add an element of cultural exchange by demonstrating some non-Chinese dishes popular at weddings. And Homemakers magazine food editor Andrew Chase, who lived in Taiwan for five years, will make popular Taiwanese dishes like basil chicken.

Snap up a sample at the demos, which are free to attend, like all Roundhouse TaiwanFest events. (The documentary will screen before the demos by the Taiwanese chefs.) For serious grazing, head to the Plaza of Nations, where there’s entertainment and a pay-as-you-go food fair. (Admission is $12 for adults and free for kids 12 and under and seniors 65 and over.)

The highlight of this year’s food fair is chia-a noodle, a basic but beloved Taiwanese dish. Wu explains that the dish consists of wheat noodles in soup with dried red onion, bean sprouts, and chives, or noodles served dry with a ground pork sauce. He recalls frequenting a chia-a noodle stand as a student in Kaohsiung, and he tries to fit in a visit when he returns home. “Taiwan is quite hot in the summer, but people will sit in this back alley without air conditioning and sweat it out to eat the noodles. It’s the memory.”

The fest will have a do-it-yourself chia-a noodle station, where visitors can boil their own noodles in a basket (chia refers to the dunking motion). “You’ve seen people cooking it for you for many years,” Wu says. “Now you can do it for yourself.”

Culinary offerings from Tainan, a coastal city in southwestern Taiwan, will also be for sale. “Tainan is well known for street food," Wu says, adding that many Chinese dishes first came to Taiwan through the island’s ancient capital. Look for seafood dishes like chowder and other street snacks popular throughout the country, including coffin toast, a piece of hollowed-out, stew-filled bread.