Cheung Chau Island -- a place to retrace Chinese traditions and folk stories in Hong Kong
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The beach volleyball. [Photo: Global Times] |
![The beach volleyball. [Photo: Global Times]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100805/000d87ad3cdd0dc4968607.jpg "The beach volleyball. [Photo: Global Times]")
Golden beach to go for a swim
A five-minute walk from the ferry pier is Tung Wan beach where locals and visitors enjoy swimming. At weekend families would like to spend their happy hours swimming or playing with their dogs at the beach. Also, some boys indulge in doing sports there like the beach volleyball.
Explore Chinese traditions and folk stories behind Cheung Chau Bun Festival
Perhaps that is the point of the travel - to retrace the folk stories about Cheung Chau Bun Festival and the related Chinese culture and traditions, although it has been celebrated one month ago this year. The local friend told that Cheung Chau is most famous for its weeklong Bun Festival held during the fourth moon 8th day in the lunar calendar. The amazing festival attracts thousands upon thousands of locals and overseas tourists every year and it gets its name from the huge towers of 'lucky' buns.
This week-long celebration includes a fantastic parade of children dressed up as mythological Chinese characters as well as a bun tower scrambling competition where contestants clamber up a tower stacked with buns trying to grab the lucky buns on the top.
Origin
One of the well-known origins of this popular festival involved a plague on the island hundreds of years ago. Villagers disguised themselves as different deities and walked around the island to drive away the evil spirits responsible for the plague. It suggests that the festival is held for the purpose of an annual exorcism.
The festival also includes a three-day fasting when only vegetarian-style food is available on the island. Local butcher shops are closed for the three days of fasting and there is no meat for sale. Except for that, it is interesting to see the local Mc Donald’s restaurant only serve the vegetarian-style hamburger then. The ingredients of the hamburger include mushrooms, vegetables, carrots and a salad sauce.
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