Chanting villagers parade a giant effigy through the alleys of rural Hong Kong before setting it ablaze in a once-in-a-decade ceremony to ward off bad luck and appease their ancestors.
Residents of Kam Tin decked out their northern corner of the city with towering flower boards and a vast bamboo stage for the Taoist Jiao festival which dates back over 300 years.
The five-story-tall, 3,900m2 stage won a Guinness World Record this month for being the biggest temporary bamboo structure and carries deeper resonance after a deadly fire devastated the city last month.
Photo: AFP
“I found it truly awe-inspiring,” an onlooker surnamed Lee, 30, told reporters. “It’s remarkably well-built and rich in traditional elements.”
The burning of the 5m paper “ghost master” on Friday marked the climax of the festival, and was attended by thousands.
The ritual was allegedly begun by the Tang clan in 1685 to honor local officials who helped them reclaim their coastal homes after government evictions.
Photo: AFP
The multi-day festival is one of Hong Kong’s longest-running traditional events, and features lion and dragon dances, Cantonese opera, and puppet shows.
Dazzlingly illuminated boards around the village proclaim hopes for good weather and abundant harvests.
The event took over a year to plan and cost nearly HK$20 million (US$2.6 million), organizer Derek Tang said.
Locals come every 10 years to make offerings at the altar and enjoy historical crafts like bamboo construction, he said.
Hong Kong’s usage of bamboo construction materials has been in the spotlight since a huge fire killed at least 161 people in Tai Po District last month.
Authorities said the blaze at the under-repair housing estate was likely made worse by protective netting that failed fire-resistance standards. The netting was hung from bamboo scaffolding encasing several tower blocks.
Officials initially indicated they would consider replacing bamboo with metal scaffolding, but later said a complete phase-out might not be necessary.
Scaffolder Lai Chi-ming, 52, said the disappearance of the centuries-old craft would be a “great loss” for the city.
With more than a dozen master craftsmen, he spent two months building the altar in Kam Tin, which used about 30,000 bamboo and fir poles.
Rapid urbanization has made villagers more anxious to maintain their local identity, said cultural anthropologist Liu Tik-sang.
“They really want to preserve their traditions in their way. The purpose [of the festival’s scale] is to tell everyone that this means a lot to them,” he said.
Organizer Tang said such events also face challenges from declining numbers of young people and waning interest in traditional culture.
“We must not abandon our traditional Chinese culture because of [urban] development,” he said.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS