By Kwok-Leung Paul Lau and Tracey-Lee Hayes
First published in September 2018 AWARE 19
SINCE 2011, the Local Tours (LT) committee has been working with Kwok-Leung Paul Lau to introduce Hong Kong’s many fascinating heritage festivals to AWA members. First organized through the tireless efforts of LT member Regine Pocsatko, the tours allow AWA members to experience firsthand the spectacular traditions of the festivals and learn about the long history behind these rituals. These festivities were not disturbed by the colonial occupation nor by the political turmoil in mainland China after the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Folk culture and heritage have survived and even thrived extraordinarily well in metropolitan Hong Kong.
Hau Wong’s Birthday at Tung Chung on Lantau Island was the AWA’s very first heritage tour. People in Hong Kong traditionally believe in a rich variety of deities. Different groups worship deities from separate origins and hold birthday festivals for the deities in quite different styles. Hau Wong is one of the more popular deities worshipped by the farming and fishing communities. Tin Hau, Hung Shing, Tam Kung and Guan Yin are also very popular with the clansmen and fishermen.
The Jiao festivals of Hong Kong are among the grandest local events and are one of the few local heritages to be inscribed on China’s national list of intangible cultural heritage. These Taoist rituals have a long history – villagers in Kam Tin claim that their Jiao first started in 1685. Many of the best ones are held at long intervals. AWA members missed the most extraordinary one, held only once every 60 years in Sheung Shui, but we did manage to visit the festival in Sai Kung, with a 30-year cycle. We also attended some of the most fabulous Jiaos in indigenous clan villages in Lam Tsuen, Kam Tin and Ha Tsuen. These are held once every 10 years with evermore exorbitant budgets. At the festivals we attended, the organizers erected the most gigantic bamboo structures ever made, containing a spacious opera stage as well as a seating capacity of over 3000.
The Chaozhou and Hoklo communities host the Chinese Ghost Festival instead of a Jiao festival. Celebrated with huge numbers and even greater cultural diversity, this festival also appears on China’s national list of intangible cultural heritage. The summertime festivals are found all over urban neighborhoods during the Ghost Month (the seventh lunar month), and most feature large bamboo constructions which lend the opera shows an earthy grass-roots flavor. The one we visited twice had opera and ritual halls located extraordinarily under an overpass in Western District.
Some of the most interesting ceremonies we participated in were part of the Lantern Lighting Festival held by the village clans in the New Territories. The most important ceremony involved the lighting of oil lamps in traditional paper lanterns that symbolize the continuity of the family clan, as guaranteed through newborn sons. The burning of the oil is meant to send a report of this most important achievement to the clan’s ancestors and to local deities.
During Chinese New Year we participated in the Bad Luck Disposal Ritual, which was conducted in Fanling by Peng clansmen and religious specialists. They set a large red paper boat “sailing” on a special voyage around the narrow alleys in the walled villages. The purpose was to visit every household to collect “unclean objects“ that represent bad luck. Then the boat “sailed” far away, taking with it all the unclean items. In this way the households and the clan were considered to be cleansed, leaving only luck, fortune, peace and all the best.
Spring Worship in the grand ancestral halls of the Peng and Liu clans. The Liu clan’s worship of their ancestors was particularly elaborate, with a huge diversity of offerings presented during the ceremony. We also took the chance to appreciate the beauty of the traditional architecture, enhanced by the live heritage events.
The autumnal ceremonies of the Double Ninth Festival are often large-scale activities involving hundreds of descendants visiting one or a few of their distant ancestors. We participated in the Tang clan’s worship, performed in honor of their common ancestors at a graveyard in Tsuen Wan. Although the land surrounding the site has been developed and urbanized, we could still appreciate this auspicious feng shui spot, which is believed to have brought good fortune to the descendants of the most powerful great clans in Hong Kong.
Tin Hau, the most recent festival (May 2018) in which AWA members participated, honors the most popular deity in South China. In the morning we boarded our junk from Aberdeen alongside groups of worshippers, then sailed towards the island of Po Toi. The fishing boats were decorated with colorful flags, and some had lion dancers on deck. As we approached the island, we were able to see up close the bamboo structure for the opera shows. Although not huge, it was impressively erected on the cliff right in front of Tin Hau’s temple in order to provide the deity with the best view of the shows.
The rare “fa pao” scrambling competition was another highlight in Po Toi. Fa paos are elaborately decorated structures that consist of statues of the Tin Hau goddess. Each Tin Hau statue has been kept as a protector god in a worshipper’s fishing boat or home. It is believed that each statue is associated with a particular power or good luck. Through the scrambling game a worshipping group may be able to fetch a different statue to bring them different blessings and protection for the coming year. Last year one of the AWA members, Barby Walton, was part of the winning team. We are sure she will be there again to take up the challenge!
We attend these festivals with appreciation, curiosity and respect and are always treated with the friendliest hospitality. The clansmen, who often open their ancestral halls especially for the AWA, will on many occasions come forward to greet us and tell us stories about their local customs and traditions. At the opera backstage during Di Zang’s Birthday Festival in Kwun Tong, it was the actors in beautiful costumes and makeup who were eagerly asking members for a souvenir photo. The Chaozhou gentlemen at the Ghost Festival in Western District took care of us, offering gifts of little fans to help us cope with the summer heat.
As spectacular as it is to watch the charming lion dancers jumping off high poles and landing with a sideways somersault, or opera actors performing shamanistic rituals in stage costume in the temple, some of the most memorable interactions on these tours are these stories and warm greetings from the clansmen – the real masters of intangible cultural heritage.
Heritage Heritage 