Wolfes in Hong Kong: Mid-Autumn Festival

Tuesday was a holiday in Hong Kong. It was mid-autumn festival, a celebration of harvest during the full moon. This festival includes moon cakes, lanterns and fire dragon dances.

This is the mooncake I received
from the nursery school I
volunteer at

Moon cakes are special sweet cakes traditionally filled with ground lotus and sesame paste, with centres like egg yokes, and more recently chocolate and other sweet fillings. This tradition stems from a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. In a cunning plan, the rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to compatriots. This became part of the mid-autumn festival, along with colourful lanterns to help celebrate the largest full moon of the year.

The fire dragon dances started in Tai Hang, a small fishing village, in 1880. Now it part of the Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. Tradition holds that the villagers killed a serpent and a few days later a plague spread in the village and many people died. A village elder received a vision from Buddha telling him to perform a fire dragon dance and to burn fire crackers during the mid-autumn festival. The sulphur from the fire crackers drove the disease away and the villagers were saved.

Today, this immense celebration still includes all of those elements. I was fortunate to join in the festivities with a friend, Caroline, and her husband Michael (they are Brits we have met in Hong Kong). First, we lit a lantern in their home

Caroline with our
lit lantern

Lantern on their balcony
(overlooking Victoria Harbour
and Kowloon)

Next, we headed to the streets of Tai Hang to watch the fire dragon dance. Just being in the crowd was entertaining as we saw many things.....

People get hungry as they wait

So proud of the roasting pig!

Of course, there were lanterns all around us.....

Much to our surprise, this is what happened before the dragon arrived !

Ah, the British empire still alive and well in Hong Kong...bagpipes at a fire dragon dance!! I have now seen Chinese bagpipers (add that to the list of international bagpipers I have seen that includes Filipino!)

Modern fire dragon dance uses 72,000 incense sticks instead of fire crackers and smoke, and we were fortunate to watch them light them. All of the people involved are from this neighbourhood, and are obviously very proud of this event!

The crowd waited in anticipation as the dragon wound its way through the narrow street...and then, cheers ahead and it was here...all 67 m (220 feet) of it!

Next we followed the crowd to Victoria Park nearby for continued festivities. Of course, there were lots of lanterns

The most impressive was the world record breaking fish lantern...37 m x 9.6 m x 13 m

They started another fire dragon dance, and I have never been in such a crowd of people! It was all very exciting, and yes, the moon was full!

Well, though I have many more pictures and stories from this magical evening, it all comes down to what most festivals all over the world are about.....the kids