Hong Kong’s Top 10 : Festivals and Events

1. Chinese New Year

   Hong
   Kong’s most celebrated festival is a riot of neon and noise.
   Skyscrapers on both sides of the harbour are lit up to varying degrees
   depending on the vicissitudes of the economy, fireworks explode over the
   harbour, shops shut down and doormen suddenly turn nice, hoping for a
   handout of lai see (lucky money).

   • Three days from the first day of the first moon, usually late Jan or early Feb

   
   

   
   
   

   Fireworks, Chinese New Year

   
   
   

   Flowers for Chinese New Year

2. Spring Lantern (Yuen Siu) Festival

   Also
   known as Chinese Valentine’s Day, this festival marks the end of the
   traditional Lunar New Year celebrations. Canoodling couples take to the
   parks under the gentle glow of lanterns and peeping Tom arrests surge.

   • The 15th day of the lunar calendar (end Feb)

3. Tin Hau Festival

   This
   is the big one if you make your living from the sea. Fishermen make
   floral paper offerings to Tin Hau, the goddess of the sea, hoping for
   fine weather and full nets. (Her views on overfishing and dragnetting
   aren’t clear.) Try the temples at Stanley, Joss House Bay or Tin Hau
   Temple Road.

   • The 23rd day of the 3rd moon (Apr)

   
   

   
   
   

   Tin Hau Festival

4. Cheung Chau Bun Festival

   Talk
   about a bunfight. Young men used to scale 8-m (26-ft) towers covered in
   buns until in the 1970s they started falling off and the practice was
   banned. It was revived in a tamer form in2005.

   • The 6th day of 4th moon (May)

   • Cheung Chau

   
   

   
   
   

   Bun Festival

5. Ching Ming

   Also known as the grave-sweeping festival, ching mingmeans
   “clear and bright”. This is when Chinese families visit the graves of
   their ancestors to clear them of any weeds and wilted flowers. Many
   people also light incense and burn paper money.

   • First week of Apr

6. Dragon Boat (Tuen Ng) Festival

   Drums
   thunder and paddles churn the waters of Hong Kong as garish craft vie
   for the top prize. The festival honours Qu Yuan, a 3rd-century
   poet-statesman who drowned himself to protest against corrupt rulers.

   • The 5th day of the 5th moon (early June), various venues

   
   

   
   
   

   Dragon boats

   
   
   

   Dragon Dance, Tin Hau

7. Hungry Ghost (Yue Laan) Festival

   From
   the 14th day of the seventh moon, Chinese believe the gates of hell are
   thrown open and the undead run riot on earth for a month. Lots more
   “Hell money” goes up in smoke, as do various hillsides. Not a good time
   for hiking.

   • Roughly Jul, various locations

8. Mid-Autumn Festival

   One
   of the most picturesque of Hong Kong’s festivals. Families brave the
   most appalling traffic jams to venture out into the country parks to
   burn candles and feast on yolk-centred moon-cakes. Unfortunately, the
   intricate paper lanterns have increasingly been supplanted by glowing,
   blow-up Hello Kitty, Doraemon and Pokémon dolls.

   • The 15th night of the 8th moon (Aug); try Victoria Park

9. Chung Yeung Festival

   Put
   on your hiking boots. This festival commemorates a Han Dynasty scholar
   who took his family up a hill and came back to find the rest of his
   village murdered.

   • The 9th evening of the 9th moon (usually mid- to late Oct); visit any hilltop

10. Christmas Day

    Not
    a traditional Chinese festival, of course, but Hong Kongers have
    wholeheartedly embraced the more commercial aspects of Christmas.

    • 25th Dec

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