Tourists, locals prepare to climb bun towers at Hong Kong’s Cheung Chau Bun Fest

The lucky ones get the “lucky buns.”

 

Come April 28 this year, tourists and locals alike will be scrambling up towers made out of plastic buns in the idyllic island town of Cheung Chau in Hong Kong.

 

The higher they climb up the tower, the “luckier” the buns would be.

 

The annual Bun Scrambling Competition, listed by Time.com as one of its “Top 10 Quirky Local Festivals,” is expected to draw thousands of tourists as the town kicks off the seven-day Cheung Chau Bun Festival on April 22.

 

Thanksgiving

 

The locals have been celebrating the Cheung Chau Bun Festival for more than 100 years. 

 

According to folklore, the dumbbell-shaped island of Cheung Chau was devastated by a plague in the late Qing dynasty. To drive off the evil spirits and end the famine, the locals set up a sacrificial altar and held a “Jiao,” a sacrificial ceremony, outside the temple of the god Pak Tai.

 

They also paraded the god’s statues around the village.

 

When the plague ended shortly after, the locals decided to honor and give thanks to Pak Tai by holding a bun festival each year. 

 

The festival usually commences at the eighth day of the fourth lunar month in the Chinese calendar.

 

Floating Colors parade

 

Other activities are also held during the weeklong festival.

 

Spread over the week are Chinese opera performances, acrobatic shows, and the traditional Lion and Unicorn dances at the Pak Tai Temple Plaza.

 

Another highlight of the festival is the grand and colorful Piu Sik or “Floating Colors” parade, where children dress up as mythological characters and reenact the town’s history.

 

All children participating in the parade must weigh no more than 18 kilograms, as they need to be set up in a complicated network of rods, wires, and strings to create the appearance that they are “floating.”  

The much-anticipated Bun Scrambling Competition caps the festivities at midnight of April 29. The locals used to put up real buns in the towers, but have since switched to plastic ones to avoid wastage.

 

Buns are also distributed the morning after, as the town holds a closing ceremony to send back the deities to their temples.

 

All the activities are open to the public for free. The festival program is available at the Discover Hong Kong website. –Ralph Angelo Ty/KG, GMA News