Lights in the Sky

I’m a big bucket list kind of girl.  Not in a I’ll- be- so- disappointed- with- my- life- if- I- don’t- do- these- things kind of way, but more in a make-the-most-of-every-opportunity-and-do-unique-things kind of way.  And something that has been on my bucket list (and subsequently on my dream board) for a long time was attending the Sky Lantern Festival in Taiwan.  So since I’m just an hour and a half flight away from Taiwan I decided to seize the moment and go for it.

Luckily, the festival took place on a Saturday night (I am back at work now) so I was able to fly in Saturday morning and go back to HK Sunday morning… I was there for just about 24 hours.  I have to say I had forgotten what it was like going through immigration when you are not a resident of the country… I was back to the “other” line and man was it long.

The festival actually last the duration of the Lunar New Year and there are different events across the country.  I went specifically for the Taipei Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.  The practice of sky lanterns was originally done as a way to let others know the town was safe.  Now the lanterns are decorated with people’s wishes and hopes for the future. The lanterns are different colors which all have different meanings (mine was white which symbolized hope for the future) and you stand on the train tracks the run through the center of the town when you release your lantern to get the best good fortune.

After getting out of the airport I made my way to the train station and headed out to Shifen in the Pingxi district, where the lantern festival was happening. I got to sample some street food (very excited about the corn), buy some souvenirs, release my own lanter, and finally see the official lantern release.  It was amazing! After the lantern releases I went back to Taipei city, caught a couple hours of sleep and then woke up early to head back to HK.  It was a super fast turn around, but totally worth getting to experience this festival.

Also I’m very thankful to the wonderfully friendly and helpful Taiwanese people I met because unlike in HK many signs and the train information are not given in English so I owe a lot of my ease of travel there to kind strangers helping me find my way.

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Parades and Opera

It’s been a couple weeks since I last posted.  I spent those weekends sick and working so not much worth putting on the blog happened.  But no worries, I got back to adventuring this past weekend!

On Saturday my friends and I woke up very early (read: 6:30am) and made our way across the island back to Shek O.  The village there was celebrating Tai Ping Ching Chiu, the Prayer for Peace Festival.  This festival is celebrated every ten years to thanks the Gods for the previous ten years of peace, harmony, and good fortunes and ask for their blessings for the next decade.  Shek O is the only place in Hong Kong that this festival is held and for the entire five day duration of the festival everyone in the village eats a solely vegetarian diet because it is seen as bad luck to bring meat into the village.

The festivities on Saturday consisted of a parade in the morning (why we left so early to get there) that included music, dancers, people in various traditional costumes, and shrines to the Gods that preside over the occasion.

Following the parade was a Cantonese Opera performance.  This involves elaborate costumes and makeup and was really very interesting. As the name suggests it is all in Cantonese so I had no idea what was being said or sung, but I have to say emotions are definitely universal.  I am convinced that I was able to successfully follow the main plot line without any of the words.

Happy Mid-Autumn!

So this past Thursday was the Mid-Autumn Festival here in Hong Kong.  This is a traditional harvest festival held on the 15^th day of the 8^th month of the lunar calendar on the night of the full moon. The celebrations for Mid-Autumn happen at night so people get out of work around lunch time and then get the next day off, so it’s a nice long weekend.  There are big gatherings and lantern displays in many cities and it is also a time when people travel home to have dinner and spend time with their families.

We went to the big celebration in Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island. There were performances and food vendors and amazing lantern displays.  There was also a fire dragon dance in which a 65(ish) meter dragon made out of incense is lit and paraded around.  The smell is so strong and there is so much smoke from it that it makes your eyes water.  Of course the crowds were so insane it was very difficult to get a good picture of the dragon.  Also before they lit the dragon there were some performances essentially to open for the dragon dance, but it was bagpipes and Irish step dancing and the announcer was speaking  only in Cantonese so I really have no idea how that all fit together.

Since the full moon is a big part of Mid-Autumn mooncakes are also a huge part of the celebration. I haven’t gotten a definitive answer about the origin of the mooncake tradition but one explanation I got was a myth about mooncakes being used by the Ming revolutionaries in their effort to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China at the end of the Yuan dynasty.  Supposedly, they circulated a rumor that a deadly plague was spreading and that the only way to prevent it was to eat special mooncakes, which would revive and give special powers to the user.  This led to the quick distribution of mooncakes which had a message (coordinating the Han Chinese revolt on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month) printed on the surfaces of mooncakes (which came in packages of four), as a simple puzzle or mosaic. To read the message, each of the four mooncakes was cut into four parts. The resulting 16 pieces were pieced together to reveal the message. The pieces of mooncake were then eaten to destroy the message.

 

Today there are two main kinds of mooncakes in Hong Kong, traditional and snowy.  The traditional mooncakes have an egg yolk in the center and the snowy ones have a variety of fillings and are covered in something similar to mochi.  I’m a huge fan of the snowy ones and needless to say I spent my Mid-Autumn eating a ton of mooncakes! (the one below is a traditional mooncake… I was too busy eating the snowy ones to take a picture)