Cheung Chau Bun Festival

May 12: At 11 a.m., the parade for the Cheung Chau Bun Festival (長 洲 太 平 清 醮) begins. The island’s patron deity, Pak Tai, leads the way. Twenty-thousand expected spectators surge against police barricades all along the old winding alleys of Cheung Chau. Today, the population for the tiny fishing island southeast of Lantau Island is upwards of 50,000.



Small children dressed as local heroes and Cantonese opera performers nervously wave their hands and smile. Hoisted in the air atop metal poles, they hover above a rabid mob of snapshot-crazed tourists. The children must wait; a procession of drumming and gong-banging ushers gyrating lion and dragon dancers – a tradition thought to scare away evil spirits.

The sun drips hot on the neck of drummers stuck at the back of the procession. The parade slows to a stop. The drumming continues. Lion/dragon dancers and villagers carrying flags wait for the parade to resume momentum. After about an hour, police force a passage for the children’s parade.

After another hour the parade is over. There is already a line stretching 500 meters along the harbor. Joyce already left, in order to beat the line. She goes home to study, and I wander the island.











I wander very nice beaches (very crowded today), quaint village settings (similar to the main street on Lamma Island, except more sincere), lots of locals selling street food, neon orange, green and red flags all along the waterfront, the occasional dragon or lion dancers lead a drummer and group of laughing children through the crowd...

...and of course, BUNS. A number of stalls sell steamed buns. Bun lines stretch almost as long as the line to the ferry.

The Cheung Chau bun festival is one of the must-see local Hong Kong festivals (on the eighth day of the fourth month in the lunar calendar). The Festival culminates after three-days of vegetarian diet leading up to the final celebration (which I attend).

The morning parade is linked to the festival’s supposed origin, when fishermen brought an image of Pak Tai to the island in the 18th century, with hopes of ridding Cheung Chau of plague and pirates and marched around the island dressed as deities to drive off evil spirits.

In the evening, villagers climb giant, phallic bun towers in a race to grab the most buns.

Here, the tradition has changed most in the past century. The government banned the bun scrambling competition after a 1978 bun tower collapse. The event was resurrected in 2005; however, the bamboo towers became artificial shells over steel pillars, while contestants wear safety harnesses and are required to complete training in preparation for the race. Three days of training and time trails also serves to narrow the field of competitors to 12 contestants. After two years of resumed competition, in 2007, the bun tower was further altered – the steamed buns were replaced with plastic replicas – supposedly “safer” and more “environmentally-friendly.”







I get in line for buns twice - once after the parade, and again in the evening before I plan to head back to Hong Kong. By the time I’ve gotten through the second line (and snapped photos of the bun preparation and selling process), it’s 2.5 hours till the tickets become available for watching the bun race in (limited to 1,500 people). So, I put a bun for Joyce in my backpack, and I get in line.
According to my ticket, I’m No. 327. I trade my ticket at the gate of the park for another ticket that entitles me entrance to the closest section, where I stand/sit/wait for the race.



One of the contestants comes by me in the viewing area to say hi to friends. He leaves, and joins the other contestant around the pillar with a sack contraption attached to his back for filling with buns.

At midnight, a gong clangs, and the race begins. Nine-hundred buns at the top of the 15-meter tower are valued at 9-points, 1,700 buns at the second highest portion are valued at 3-points, and 6,400 lower buns are valued at 1-point apiece.

A climber in orange quickly zooms to the top and takes the lead, which he holds on to as all the climbers meet him. A relay climbing competition and an awards ceremony follow on the other side of the tower (but I can’t see, and I can’t understand the speaker).

Workers scurry to raise some sort of metal grid over the tower, and as I’m leaving, I hear, a “bye bye,” and the surrounding mob begins clapping wildly, Fountains of fire shout from five points of the tower just as I turn around. I snap a few photos as fireworks explode in an impressive finale. Then, I rush to join the mass of festival goers running to the Hong Kong ferry.