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Chinese Festivals

Experiencing a major Chinese festival in Hong Kong is an enchanting and mesmerising adventure. Hong Kong's major traditional festivals are colourful and noisy affairs, at which thousands upon thousands of people turn out to join the celebrations. Fireworks, festive feasting, lion and dragon dancers, incense smoke, Chinese opera, mah jong, fortune-telling, carnivals and parades come together in a variety of combinations to create a uniquely festive atmosphere seen nowhere else in the world. The festivals are among the best ways to experience the unique culture of this modern East-meets-West destination. There are festivals throughout the year that you are sure to enjoy. Join a tour group to get the best seats in the house during any of the city's festivals.

 # No lunar date. Follows Winter Solstice by 105 days.



Chinese New Year Celebrations
First Moon, Day 1 (January/February)
The dynamic colours and sounds of Chinese New Year make this a vibrant and exhilarating time.

Experience the non-stop excitement of Chinese New Year Celebrations in Hong Kong.
Arrival of Chinese New Year with a stunning arrays of festivities. Visitors will be awestruck by the myriad of New Year celebrations in Hong Kong that last 15 days. A carnival atmosphere prevails with flower markets, a fantastic parade, skyscrapers sparkling with special festive lighting and much more. This is the best time to visit Hong Kong as it goes into overdrive to provide a feast for the senses during this holiday season. You'll soon be wishing everyone the traditional Chinese New Year greeting, Kung Hei Fat Choi (Prosperous New Year) During the year's biggest and brightest Chinese festival.

Chinese New Year Parade
During the year's biggest and brightest chinese festival. Highlighting the New Year's Festivities is the Chinese New Year Parade held on the first day of every Chinese New Year. The harbour front on Hong Kong Island is filled with colourful floats,marching bands and costumed groups from around the world. There is also street entertainers along with dragon and lion dancers. It's a scintillating fusion of international and Chinese elements that defines Hong Kong as the city where East meets West. Book your tickets early for the spectator stands or watch the parade from any vantage point along the route.This parade definitely creates never-to-be-forgotten memories.



Birthday of Che Kung
First Moon, Day 2 (January/February)
Hong Kong's gamblers have their own god to bring them good luck for the year. Che Kung, a Sung Dynasty general, became an immortal and was elevated to a Taoist deity after he saved the inhabitants of Sha Tin Valley in the New Territories from a plague. This centuries-old tradition is celebrated by thousands of believers who flock to his temple to wish him happy birthday on the second or the third day of Lunar New Year. The temple, which coincidentally lies near the Hong Kong Jockey Club's Sha Tin Racecourse, has been renovated and is a popular place of worship. Many seeking Che Kung's good fortune visit the temple to consult fortune-tellers, who turn a fan-bladed wheel of fortune three times to ensure good luck in the coming year.



Spring Lantern
First Moon, Day 15 (January/February)
Gain an wonderful insight into the Chinese world of romance during the Spring Lantern Festival. Popularly referred to as Chinese Valentine's Day, this festival marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Based on an old Chinese tradition, flower markets, restaurants, homes and parks are filled with colourful lanterns in traditional designs. During the festival, singles gather to play matchmaking games with the lanterns, to determine who will be their lover. The festival is marked by special evening celebrations in Ko Shan Road Park in Kowloon, organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.



Ching Ming
Third Moon (March/April)
Ancestor worship is a Chinese tradition dating back thousands of years. Also known as the Grave-sweeping or Spring Remembrance, Ching Ming ("clear and bright"), is when Chinese families show their respect by visiting the graves of their ancestors to clear away weeds, touch up gravestone inscriptions and make offerings of wine and fruit. Public transport is widely used, particularly on routes along which cemeteries are located, and the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) East Rail runs extra services to cope with the increased traffic to burial areas in the New Territories. You should expect delays on public transport and on roads with access to cemeteries.



Birthday of Tin Hau
Third Moon, Day 23 (April/May)
All those who owe their livelihood to the sea praise Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea. Tin Hau's birthday is celebrated to bring safety, security, fine weather and full nets during the coming year. Seafarers adorn with boats with colourful ribbons praising the goddess for past protection and praying for future luck. Boats are loaded with symbols of devotion, with offerings to the goddess. The festival in her honour culminates in a procession and is characterised by floral paper offerings known as fa pau. Every year Joss House Bay, in Sai Kung, hosts a vivid celebration, where traditional rites are observed at the temple. In Yuen Long, in the New Territories, a parade takes place with colourful floats and lion dances. There is a special tour that provides a visit to the Tin Hau Temple and other tours organised during the festival period.



Cheung Chau Bun Festival
Fourth Moon, Day 8 (April/May)
A celebration dominated by sweet buns is quite a spectacle, and it is one not to be missed. Every year on the tiny island of Cheung Chau, Hong Kong's people celebrate the Bun Festival. Enormous bamboo towers studded with sweet bun and effigies of three gods dominate the grounds near the Pak Tai Temple, where the main festivities take place. The festival that lasts for about a week climaxes with a large, colourful street procession, which features costumed children on stilts in a carnival atmosphere that winds its way through the streets.



Seven Sisters
Seventh Moon, Day 7 (August)
Hong Kong's girls and young lovers have the Seven Sisters Festival all to themselves. The festival has its origin in Chinese folklore dating back more than 1,500 years. The legend, features a weaver maid (with six older sisters), who led a lonely life working at her loom throughout the year. Her father, the Heavenly Emperor, felt sorry for her and allowed her to marry a cowherder from across the Milky Way. After the wedding, she neglected her weaving duties and the Emperor ordered her to return home and visit her husband only once a year - on the seventh day of the seventh moon. The celebrations centre on religious rites and feature needlework competitions. As part of the worship, young women make offerings to the night sky and the two stars that represent the cowherder and the maid. They usually present fruit and burn joss sticks and incense in the open air, chiefly on rooftops, in backyards and gardens or at Lover's Rock on Bowen Road in Wan Chai.



Birthday of Lord Buddha
Fourth Moon, Day 8 (April/May)
The birthday of Lord Buddha is a celebration of great reverence in Hong Kong's Buddhist temples. Worshippers show their devotion throughout the day by bathing Buddha's statue. Celebrations centre round the major temples and monasteries in Hong Kong. Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, home to the world's largest, seated, outdoor bronze Buddha, is the hub of activity at this time. Enjoy sumptuous Chinese vegetarian dishes cooked by the monks at Po Lin Monastery; observe the ceremonies at Miu Fat Monastery in Tuen Mun, in the New Territories.



Birthday of Tam Kung
Fourth Moon, Day 8 (April/May)
Another patron saint of the sea, Tam Kung, brings security and happiness to all fishermen. His birthday festival is celebrated with considerable devotion and fanfare at the Tam Kung Temple in Shau Kei Wan on Hong Kong Island, which dates from 1905. Similar to the Tin Hau festivities, the seafarers celebrate in order to secure safety and good luck during the coming year.



Dragon Boat Festival
Fifth Moon, Day 5 (June)
The Dragon Boat Festival combines a fast-paced sporting spectacular with a traditional festival. The Festival, also known as Tuen Ng Festival, commemorates the death of a popular Chinese national hero, Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Mi Lo River over 2,000 years ago to protest against the corrupt rulers. Legend says that as townspeople attempted to rescue him, they beat drums to scare fish away and threw dumplings into the sea to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body.

The real highlight of the festival is the fierce dragon boats racing in a lively, vibrant spectacle. Teams race the elaborately decorated dragon boats to the beat of heavy drums. The special boats, which measure more than 10 metres, have ornately carved and painted "dragon" heads and tails, and each carries a crew of 20-22 paddlers. Participants train in earnest for the competition. Sitting two abreast, with a steersman at the back and a drummer at the front, the paddlers race to reach the finishing line, urged on by the pounding drums and the roar of the crowds. Today, festival activities recall this legendary event. People eat rice-and-meat dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves; and many look forward to swimming or even simply dipping their hands in the water.



Birthday of Kwan Tai
Sixth Moon, Day 24 (July / August)
Kwan Tai is the God of War and the patron of Hong Kong's police and gangsters! An historical figure from the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-265), Kwan Tai was later deified as a Taoist symbol of integrity and loyalty. An ever-burning lamp stands before his statue in the colourful mid-19th Century Man Mo Temple on Hong Kong Island's Hollywood Road. Meaning "Civil and Martial", the temple is dedicated jointly to Kwan Tai and to the God of Literature.



Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival
Seventh Moon, Day 15 (August/September)
For one long lunar month during the Hungry Ghost Festival, ghosts are said to roam the earth. Throughout this month Chinese people do their best to avoid late nights to steer clear of the spirits. In some areas of Hong Kong, visitors can see small roadside fires, where believers burn paper money and other offerings to appease the restless spirits. Local festivals feature Chinese opera. Popular venues are King George V Memorial Park in Kowloon and Moreton Terrace Playground in Causeway Bay.



Mid - Autumn
Eighth Moon, Day 15 (September/October)
The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most charming and picturesque nights of the calendar. The festival commemorates a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, the rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to compatriots. Today, during the festival, people eat special sweet cakes known as "Moon Cakes" made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg-yolk and other ingredients. Along with the cakes, shops sell coloured Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals, and more recently, in the shapes of aeroplanes and space ships. On this family occasion, parents allow children to stay up late and take them to high vantage points such as The Peak to light their lanterns and watch the huge autumn moon rise while eating their moon cakes. Public parks are ablaze with many thousands of lanterns in all colours, sizes and shapes.

Also not to be missed is one of the most spectacular celebrations you'll ever see which takes place in Causeway Bay during the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 14th - 16th day of the eighth lunar month. It's the fire dragon dance in Tai Hang - a collection of streets located in behind the Causeway Bay recreation grounds and features a dragon measuring 66 metres. Over a century ago, Tai Hang was a village whose inhabitants lived off of farming and fishing. A few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival a typhoon and then a plague wreaked havoc on the village. While the villagers were repairing the damage, a python entered the village and ate their livestock. According to some villagers, the python was the son of the Dragon King. The only way to stop the havoc which had beset their village was to dance a fire dance for three days and nights during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. The villagers made a big fire dragon of straw and stuck incense into the dragon. They lit firecrackers. They danced for three days and three nights and the plague disappeared.



Monkey God
Eighth Moon, Day 16 (September/October)
The Monkey God Festival is celebrated in the true nature of the deity - mischievous, playful and definitely fun to be around. This arrogant and troublesome god first appeared in Pilgrims to the West, a novel dating from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and has been brought into Western and Eastern popular culture with a television series detailing his adventures. An outcast from Taoist heaven, the Monkey God redeemed himself, and gained Buddhist immortality by escorting Tang Gan Zang on his pilgrimage to the West to obtain the teachings of Lord Buddha.

In Hong Kong, at his shanty town temple in Kowloon's Sau Mau Ping area, a possessed medium recreates the ordeals by fire and stabbing, which the Monkey God suffered during unsuccessful attempts by other gods to execute him. The medium, who remains unharmed, runs barefoot over blazing charcoal and climbs a ladder of knives.



Birthday of Confucius
Eighth Moon, Day 27 (September/October)
Confucius's Birthday is celebrated reverently by Hong Kong's devout followers. One of China's most influential philosophers, Confucius's ethics stress self-enlightenment through the Five Virtues of charity, justice, propriety, wisdom and loyalty. Filial devotion and ancestral worship, observed during the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, continue to be a cornerstone of Confucianist practice today.



Chung Yeung
Ninth Moon, Day 9 (September/October)
The Chung Yeung Festival is a day to respect and remember ancestors. Also known as Autumn Remembrance, this festival is similar to Ching Ming in the spring, in that families journey to the graves of their ancestors to perform cleansing rites and pay their respects. They share the food they bring along, especially Chinese cakes, ko, which is a homonym of the word for "top". Some believe that those who eat these cakes will be promoted to the top.

It is also a day for hiking. The Chung Yeung Festival commemorates a Han Dynasty (BC 202-AD 220) legend, which tells how a soothsayer advised Woon King that he should take his family to a high place for the entire ninth day of the ninth moon. Upon their return, the Woon family discovered all living things in their village had been slaughtered. Today, many Hong Kong families head to the hills to picnic during the Chung Yeung Festival. With the cooler weather and clear skies at this time of the year, many people simply take the opportunity to go on one of Hong Kong's many hikes. Why not join a hiking tour for the day!



Winter Solstice
Eleventh Moon (December)
Dong Zhi is the second most important festival of the Chinese calendar. Celebrated on the longest night of the year, Dong Zhi is the day when sunshine is weakest and daylight shortest. The coming of winter is celebrated by families and is traditionally the time when farmers and fishermen gather food in preparation for the coming cold season. It is also a time for family reunions.

This celebration can be traced to the Chinese belief in yin and yang, which represent balance and harmony in life. It is believed that the yin qualities of darkness and cold are at their most powerful at this time, but it is also the turning point, giving way to the light and warmth of yang. For this reason, the Dong Zhi Festival is a time for optimism. Dong Zhi is celebrated in style. The longest night of the year is a time to put on brand new clothes, visit family with gifts and to laugh and drink deep into the long night.

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  Information provided by Hong Kong Tourism Board.

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