Shaped like a dumbbell, Cheung Chau Island is one of Hong Kong's delightful outlying islands. Featuring fantastic seafood, pleasant beaches, plenty of culture and heritage, it's a relatively short ferry arrive away from Central Ferry Pier 5. Cheung Chau is unique among outlying island communities. It still possesses a thriving fishing industry. Tourists can see all the fishing boats lying at the pier as the ferry comes into dock.

Along the pier on main street, there are numerous Chinese and western restaurants, many of which serve fresh and tempting seafood. Seafood dining on Cheung Chau is very popular with the locals. After tucking to the great seafood dinner on the island, you will know why people like it so much.

DIY seafood pick-out

Apart from dining, there are butcher shops and vendors selling fresh fish, shellfish, fresh fruits and vegetables. At weekend, the small local restaurants and food stalls usually have a busy trade. Along the Cheung Chau Complex on the main street (Tai Hing Tai Road), tourists can pick up fresh seafood and have it cooked at a nearby restaurant. It must be a great gourmet in the world!

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.

Highlight scenes

Tourists cannot miss the fantastic parade of children during the festival. The procession features the images of old and much venerated gods played by heavily made-up young children of five or six years old who glide by above slow-moving floats. Hidden inside their costumes are steel rods holding them aloft. Leading the parade are a host of celestial beings including Pak Tai, Tin Hau, Kwun Yum and Kwan Tai accompanied by lion dancers loudly beating drums and gongs. It is full of Chinese traditional flavors.

On the day of Bun Scrambling Competition, villagers erect giant towers studded with sweet white buns and colorful giant papier-mâché replicas of various deities at the Pak Tai Temple on the island, built in 1783 to commemorate Pak Tai, the Taoist God of the Sea. The lucky bun tower is located right near the Pak Tai Temple.

During the competition that begins at the stroke of midnight on the final day of the festival, athletes scramble up a steel tower covered in 'lucky' plastic buns vying to collect as many as possible. The finalist who grabs the largest number of buns within a three-minute time limit is the winner. The lucky buns are usually distributed to the public at the end of the festival.

Festive foods for shopping

The leading role during the Cheung Chau Bun Festival must be the 'lucky' bun. It features a white steamed bun with the Chinese Characters for peace (“平安”) stamped on it. It is these buns that decorate the bun tower and handed out to the public at the end of the festival. And it is believed that families that get a bun will enjoy good health in the coming year.

Nowadays it is also possible to buy the buns from local bakeries after the festival. Meanwhile, some bun souvenirs like the cell phone accessories are also available on the local butcher shops. It is meaningful to buy it for families.

(Source: China Daily)