TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwanese theme park on Tuesday (Nov. 10) issued a formal apology for a tombstone with President Donald Trump's name marked on it at what appeared to be a demonic funeral for his demise during its nightly Halloween parade.
On Sunday (Nov. 8), a float in a "Zombie Demon Parade" at the Leofoo Village Theme Park (六福村主題遊樂園) in Hsinchu County's Guanxi Township was seen with a casket, shovel, and tombstone inscribed with the surname "Trump."
The parade, officially known as the "Hollywood Monster and Zombie Demon Parade," is part of the annual Halloween extravaganza the theme park holds in its mockup of a Wild West town called "Tombstone." The ghoulish gala is held every day at 2 p.m. until Nov. 15.
During the climactic performance following the parade on Sunday, Trump's coffin was tossed about in a Ghanaian funeral dance to the dramatic tune of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" as demons and the undead danced around feverishly.
When asked about the impetus for creating the tombstone, one of the organizers told Taiwan News that "The people who made it just wrote anything." The tombstone was created about a week ago, and one of the performers commented, "It was good timing."
With 42 percent of Taiwanese favoring Trump as opposed to the 30 percent who prefer President-elect Joe Biden, a backlash soon ensued after photos and video of the parade were posted online. Some Taiwanese considered the tombstone itself a bad omen, as it listed Trump's actual birth year, and believed the coffin could bring misfortune to the outgoing president.
In response to the uproar among Taiwanese netizens, the park posted a formal apology on its official Facebook page at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Leofoo Village stated that the float was incorrectly configured but that the park had failed to grasp the details of the event and "fulfill its responsibilities for supervision and management."
The park claimed that as soon as the offending decoration on the float was discovered, it was promptly removed and a "self-assessment" was carried out. It stated that the incident was inappropriate and apologized to the public.
Leofoo Village swore that it has no political stance, that the description on the tombstone was fabricated, and that any similarity to any living person is purely "coincidental." The park pledged that in the future, it will raise its own standards and rigorously review the details of performances. It closed by promising to continue to strive to "bring more joy and beauty to this piece of land, Taiwan."
