Cheung Chau Bun Festival - 長洲太平清醮

So we are done with school but life in Hong Kong keeps going.
On May 24th, it was Buddha's Birthday which is celebrated all around Asia by several shows and so on.

However, Buddha's Birthday is a holiday in Hong Kong as it celebrated along with the Bun Festival which takes place on Cheung Chau Island. From the university, the way to get there was taking the KCR and MTR to Central and then, take the Ferry ( pier 5) to Cheung Chau.



It is by far the most famous of several such Da Jiu Festivals (Traditional Chinese: 包山節 or 長洲太平清醮, Jiu (醮) being a Taoist sacrificial ceremony) held by several (mostly rural) communities in Hong Kong, either annually or once every few years.

Cheung Chau's Bun Festival, which draws tens of thousands of local and overseas tourists every year, is staged to mark the Eighth day of the Fourth Moon, in the Chinese calendar (usually in early May, this time by the 24th). It thus coincides with the local celebration of Buddha's Birthday.

The Cheung Chau Bun Festival began as a fun and exciting ritual for fishing communities to pray for safety from pirates. Today this religious origin has largely been forgotten, and the festival has become a showcase of traditional Chinese culture above all else.

Several activities take place. For instance, on three of these days the entire island goes vegetarian; and the island's famous seafood restaurants goes to detest this tradition, and the local McDonald's restaurant would just sell burgers made of mush rooms. Moreover, no Chinese festival is complete without lion dances and dragon dances, but this island's quirk is the children dressed as legendary and modern heroes suspended above the crowds on the tips of swords and paper fans.



The centrepiece of the festival is at Pak Tai Temple where are the "Bun Mountains" or "Bun Towers"(包山), three giant 60-feet bamboo towers covered with buns. It is those bun-covered towers that give the festival its name. Historically, young men would race up the tower to get hold of the buns; the higher the bun, the better fortune it was supposed to bring to the holder's family; the race was known as "Bun-snatching" (搶包山).




At a quarter to midnight a paper effigy of the King of the Ghosts is set ablaze, enormous incense sticks are lit and the buns are harvested and distributed to the villagers, who, pleased to be sharing in this propitious good fortune, rejoice late into the night.

Knowing the temperatures on that day were about 33 degrees celsius and the rate of humidity was about 96%, you can imagine the level of smell the burnt buns would bring haha. What an experience!

Also, Chinese operas, more dances take place during the festival.



Another event to attend in Hong Kong for sure!