Hong Kong, City of Festivals

by Albert Bertoldi (who has been living in Hong Kong for 9 months)

Albert Bertoldi has been living in Hong Kong for 9 months and shares with us his experiences of upcoming festivals.

Hong Kong is a city of unique and colourful festivals for every occasion of the year.

Whenever people visit Hong Kong, at almost anytime of the year, you can bet there is an exiting festival happening. Just veer out of the way and enjoy the next celebration that takes place.

Hong Kong mixes the fast paced life of the modern world with the hidden mystique of the Orient. Walk down any street on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon and see the past traditions setting up shop, ready for business. The provocative smelling apothecaries and the pungent odours of Asian cuisine has long been part of the exotic appeal that drives people to visit Hong Kong.

This is what Hong Kong is about; each festive celebration tells a tale of spiritual and personal fulfilment. This helps the people in their daily lives, and keeps the old traditions alive and well. These mystical events start like all good experiences, at the beginning. Be warned don’t expect to fine these holidays on the same time each year. As these important days are based on the Lunar calendar, dates vary each from year to year.

Chinese New Year starts the calendar of festivals off for the year, February 9th to the 12th. This is the most important Chinese festival of all. The Chinese communities celebrate with banquets, family outings, firecrackers and many lion and dragon dancing processions. The air is filled with loud explosions, the smell of powder and incense, and the laughter of people having fun. This festival has many superstitions, which the local population try to adhere to. Money is given to the needy, purchasing of red clothing is a must and hair is not to be cut at this time of the year. All this rituals symbolise compassion, growth renewal and long life.

This celebration dates back to 2000 BC, where “Nian”, known in Chinese as year, was the beast who devoured humans with great delight. He was conquered by a wise old man, thus signifying man’s ingenuity over Nature.

The Hong Konger gets ready for this festival long before it is due. To usher in the New Year everything which is old must make way for the new. The house is cleaned thoroughly, old furniture and other items are replaced with new ones. It is a green light for all people to spend money on new items and not feel guilty during this traditional period. The more new things you have, the more luck will find its way to your house.

New Year’s Eve brings families together at the dinner table to enjoy the most prestigious and exotic banquet of the year. The tangy, zesty odour of the prepared food wafts in the air for hours to everyone’s delight. All foods are enjoyed as they symbolise prosperity and happiness to all. For two weeks dragon dances, street parades and fireworks celebrate this famous of festivals.

As New Year ends, spring lantern festival begins on February 5th. This festival is referred to as Chinese Valentine’s day. Lanterns and the scent of flowers, line the streets and parks of the city to illuminate the night for lovers of all ages.

After the New Year celebrations are done with, the next public holiday for Hong Kong is the Ching Ming festival on April 5th. Ching Ming means clear and bright, it’s the festival of Pure Brightness. It is a day where Chinese families visit their ancestor’s gravesites and remember the dead. This ancient form of ancestor worship involves families to sweep graves, clean the headstones and reprint the inscriptions, which designate the families’ lineage. Ching Ming is a time where families seek blessings from previous generations and give thanks to a harmonious continuation of the family tree.

In keeping with the spiritual tone of the year, the next festival on offer is Buddha’s Birthday on May 15th, which was declared a public holiday in 1999. Buddhism originated from India, it was introduced by traders and monks who followed the Silk Road to China in the first century. It is now one of the main Chinese religions. This day is eulogized all over Hong Kong as the official birth of Lord Buddha. At all the Buddhist temples, statues of Buddha, in a symbolic gesture are cleaned and washed. The air is filled with aromatic incense, and the low humming of Buddha’s follower’s, chanting his prayers. The greatest spectacle of all, is the worlds largest seated outdoors Bronze Buddha on Lantau Island at the Po Lin monastery.

Uniquely on the same day, May 15th 2005, Cheung Chau Bun festival is celebrated. This ritual began on the island of Cheung Chau by its sea fearing residents. It is a ceremony which tries to help lost souls at sea find their way back home. Huge processions wind their way down the streets with people dressed in colourful traditional costumes and enjoying the carnival atmosphere. This festival is extremely popular all over Hong Kong and is said to bring luck to those who participate.

June 11th signals the most popular sporting event in Asia, if not the World. The Dragon Boat Festival conjures up teams of oarsmen, battling it out over a series of races to claim supremacy on the water. This traditional festival has turned into a wild sporting event which attracts teams from all over the world to compete in Hong Kong for the ultimate prize to win the Dragon Boat Championship. The highlight of the festival is the adrenalin charged Dragon boats in competition. Spectators cram onto the beaches to watch the races. They will eat and drink till the day is done, until one team is crowned a Champion.

This tradition started over 2000 years ago in honour of Qu Yuan, a popular statesman who served the King of Chu. He drowned himself in the Mi Lo River in protest against corrupt rules. Legend has it that the town’s folk tried to save his body by beating drums to scare the fish away. They also threw rice and dumplings into the water to keep the fish from eating Qu’s body. This day has been kept as a public holiday to praise fair and good government.

On August 11th, the Seventh day of the Seventh Lunar month, the Seven Sisters Festival begins. Chinese legend states that over 1500 years ago a weaver maid, the youngest of seven daughters to a Heavenly Emperor, fell in love and married a commoner. She gave birth to two half-mortal children to her father’s dismay. Neglecting her weaving work, her father ordered her back to continue work. The Heavenly Emperor created a mystical barrier to prevent the mortal husband from finding his wife. The Emperor’s rage cooled off when he heard the crying of his two grandchildren for their mother. She was given permission to visit her husband and children once a year on the Seventh day of the Seventh Moon.

Celebrations in Hong Kong on this festival see young women make offerings of food, and the lighting of incense sticks in the open night air. Lovers scan the skies to gaze upon the two stars that symbolise the maid and her husband.

In continuation with the Lunar month of August, the Hungry Ghosts Festival takes place on the August 19th.

The Hungry Ghost Festival known by the Chinese as Yue Laan is an ancient belief that the gates of Hell were opened, freeing hungry ghosts that wander the Earth in search of food.

The origins of this festival stem from Taoism and Buddhism, two prominent religions in Hong Kong. Taoists say the Underworld Emperor Chinghsu would celebrate his birthday by opening up the gates of the Underworld and releasing all the ghosts to enjoy the food offered to them by the mortal world. Buddhists say that one of the disciples travelled to the Underworld to save the soul of his suffering mother. He achieved his goal by having priests offer food to the hungry ghosts in Hell.

In remembrance of the dead, people burn incense sticks and offer food to appease the wandering ghosts, to prevent bad luck. Burning offerings are made, such as paper objects, food and clothing. The belief is that these items will help the ghosts live a comfortable existence in the afterworld. For the modern Hong Konger and all the expat communities, the outdoor shows, street concerts and fireworks are a major attraction to the festival. These celebrations last about two weeks. It is believed that the ghosts will return to their point of origin in Hell, which signals the end of the festival.

As the 8th Lunar month on the calendar approaches, the mid-Autumn Festival begins. The Moon is closest to the Earth at this point of time, thus appearing at its brightest. The mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Lantern or Mooncake Festival is celebrated in September to give thanks for the autumn harvest.

Its origins date back to the Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century, when China was under Mongol control. The Chinese used mooncakes as hiding places for secret notes on information regarding rebel uprising. The Mongols, who didn’t eat mooncake, were unaware of the rebellious plans. Families were told to eat cakes on the day of the festival, and then to fight the next day. A more romantic legend involves a beautiful maiden who floats up from Earth and is doomed to live on the Moon forever. This assertion by spiritualists coincides with the western belief of the ascension of the Virgin Mary.

This festival brings families together, mooncake is given to all family members close or far away to symbolise and represent the Chinese supremacy over the Mongol rulers. Traditional mooncake is filled with Lotus seed paste with the salty egg yolk in the centre to represent the Moon. Families also make the pilgrimage up Victoria Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island or to other vantage points, to gaze at the Moon and bask at its shining beauty. On this trip, people carry lanterns in all shapes and sizes up to the vantage points, to help guide their way to the top.

If this doesn’t impress the new traveller to Hong Kong, then the traditional and spectacular fire dragon dance certainly will. A 66-metre dragon of massive proportions blowing out incense fumes through its nose, winds its way down between Tin Hau and Causeway Bay. This magnificent beast of the ages roams and dances on the streets for three days and nights, till the festival finishes for the year.

As the year draws to an end, the visitor to Hong Kong might think what’s next! The answer is Chung Yeung Festival. This is a day of remembrance of past ancestors. Just like Chung Ming Festival, earlier in the year, families attend grave sites of ancestors to pay their respects. They eat cakes, known as KO, which in Chinese sounds like top. The belief is if they eat those cakes this will help one be promoted from their present position.

The most important legend from this festival is from the Han Dynasty, dating back to 202BC – 220AD. A soothsayer advised a scholar, named Woon King to relocate his family to a high point for nine days of the ninth moon. When Woon returned he found every living thing in his village had been killed.

Today most people celebrate this public holiday by walking up to Victoria Peak or other elevated hill side positions to admire and gaze down on the beauty that is Hong Kong Harbour.

To end the last term of the Chinese calendar for the year, is the Winter Solace Festival or as the Chinese call it, the Dong Zhi Festival. December 22nd marks the coming of winter, and remembrance of all the good deeds of the past year. The festival is rooted in the Chinese philosophy of Ying and Yang. It is believed that the qualities of cold and darkness, Yin, are at its zenith at this time of the year. However, it’s also a turning point which gives way to Yang, the light and warmth of life. This compensates for the balance of all living things, which provides people with hope and optimism for the coming year.

Traditionally it is time for farmers and fisherman to stock up on food for the hard winter months ahead. Families celebrated by coming together for reunions. On this day people would eat and drink well into the night with joy and hope, knowing that from this time on, the days would grow longer again.

The end of the Chinese calendar year finishes as it started. Hope for the coming year, respect of family values, and most of all respect for traditions in their culture.

All these emotions are celebrated in festivals in Hong Kong that embrace these ideologies.

Hong Kong encapsulates the smiling spirit of hospitality which the Chinese have offered to visitors for generations. They have invited people from every nation to come and experience the time warp of traditions which cannot be found in any other city of the world.

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