Disclaimer: This will be one of my snarkier blog posts since I just finished a final. I don’t mean any offense, everything is a poor attempt at humor.
One of the best ways to get to know a culture is by looking at its festivals. With that in mind, I’ve been in Hong Kong for one major festival, and several more minor ones. The most major festival I participated in was the Mid-Autumn Festival, but you’ll have to read through my old blogs to learn more about that (sorry). Instead, I’ll start by talking about a festival that should be pretty similar to my numerous readers: Halloween. Like many “Western” elements of Hongkongese culture, Halloween is slightly different than it is in the West (or at least in the US). As far as I could tell, there was no real trick-or-treating, though that could be because most people live in massive apartment buildings here, so perhaps I just didn’t see it. However, what did remain true to an authentic American Halloween was a massive amount of people dressing up in costumes and wanting to party. The only problem with this was that there is apparently one place in Hong Kong where anyone who wants to celebrate Halloween in a nice debauched manner goes: Lan Kwai Fong, or LKF for short.
Now, on a normal night, LKF is full of exchange students and some older expats standing outside of a bunch of bars drinking beers from 7-11, since they don’t want to have to mortgage their houses to be able to afford the drinks inside the clubs or bars. Having been a few times myself, it was always pretty full, since it seemed to be the only area of the city with a high concentration of bars and clubs, or at least the most accessible to Westerners who don’t know the city. But on Halloween night, instead of its usual clientele of expats and exchange students, LKF was flooded by what seemed like half the population of Hong Kong, including families with young children. LKF is about 4 blocks in size, so it’s a pretty small area, but I still expected to be able to get there, and just have it be packed. How wrong I was. There were police cordons and traffic blocks, and a 2 hour line to get into LKF. (Note that this is a whole area of the city, and not a single club or anything.) Anyway, I ended up giving up, but it was still interesting to see the crowds.
LKF Halloween Frenzy
The next festival that I will discuss was a cosmic renewal festival in a village in the New Territories, which is the area of Northern Hong Kong that has retained some Chinese culture and not been subsumed by the soulless depression of unchecked capitalism and identical featureless apartment blocks (give it time). Anyway, this is a festival that happens once every 10 years, and the idea is to renew the village cosmically (as you may have deduced from the name) according to Taoist beliefs. It was quite impressive, with large wooden structures that took over a year to build and that would be torn down after the festival, and incredibly intricate and colorful paper signs and statues. A Taoist priest was brought in to preside over the festival, and offerings of food and paper artwork were burnt for hungry ghosts and gods. The festival was a good example of how various religions come together in Hong Kong, as it had Taoist elements, a depiction of the Buddhist hell realm, and depictions of some gods from Chinese folk religion.
The pleasant experiences awaiting one who goes to the hell realm.
The beautiful paper and wood gate leading to the festival grounds.
The Taoist renewal ceremony