Foreign Property News | Posted by Aye Myat Thu
Where: Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong
When: Annually in May: 23 – 27 May, 2023 | 12 – 16 May, 2024
Duration: 4 days
Held annually from the 5th to the 9th day of the 4th lunar month (May), Hong Kong celebrates with the Cheung Chau Bun Festival. Cheung Chau Island is just a short ferry ride away from Hong Kong city and most events take place at Pak Tai Temple, the most important religious site on the island.
Back in the 1600s the plague spread through Hong Kong and locals erected an altar outside the Pak Tai Temple to give them a place to pray for the evil spirits to leave the island and rid them of the plague. Locals believe that praying away the plague really worked and so they celebrate every year with music, dance, drums and parades.
Over the course of the 4 day festival, bun-covered bamboo towers are erected and the area is alive with lion dances and colourful parades in which participants dress as
folkloric characters. The festival’s main event is a bun scrambling competition held on the last day where participants climb a 60-foot tower to collect as many buns as they can -the higher the bun, the higher the score – with individual contests and a relay.
Crowds packed the the streets to watch the Piu Sik parade, featuring elaborately dressed 'floating' children who seem to levitate
The Piu Sik parade continues with 'floating' children the centrepiece at the week-long Cheung Chau Bun Festival in Hong Kong
Twelve specially chosen contestants will have three minutes to collect as many buns as possible from a tower before the time runs out
Lion and dragon dancers parade through the streets as the colourful week-long festival reaches its climax on Monday and Tuesday
The festival is one of Hong Kong's most colourful cultural celebration events, which has 100 years of history behind it
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One child seems to effortlessly support another during the Piu Sik parade as thousands throng the streets to watch
Children parade on a float during the Bun Festival as thousands of freshly steamed buns are prepared and given out to revellers
Western tourists join people from the mainland and locals in celebrating the festival which attracts up to 70,000 people a year
The festival, which dates back more than a hundred years, is held in honour of the god Pak Tai who saved the island from plague
Thousands of real ones made by local bakers and stamped with lucky symbols will be given out to the crowds tomorrow
To ensure the tradition is passed on through the generations, the organisers fuse new elements, such as pop stars, with the old
Ref: Cheung Chau Bun Festival – Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong (dailymail)
