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The Bun Festival: The changing culture and tradition of Hong Kong Background: The Bun Festival is held once a year in Cheung Chau on the 8th of the fourth lunar month. On that day, a parade, ‘the float procession’ is held in the morning and the Bun Scrambling Competition (搶包山) is held at night. To many people, the Bun Festival is a tourist attraction. In fact, it is a kind of Jiao(醮) Festival which a village might hold every year or every few years. More specifically, it is a Tai Ping Qing Jiao(太平清醮) .This is a religious activity that people pray to Beidi (北帝) for peace. Beidi, based on a note made by Joyce Savidge in This Is Hong Kong: Temples, in 1977, the Cheung Chau people found a black wooden statue of it on a sedan chair which could help them to stop any plague.1 As Joyce states, the Bun Festival began as the Cheung Chau people wanted to thank the Beidi. Yet, the origins of the Bun Festival are unclear.2 According to the interview carried by Choi Chi Cheung, a history professor in the Chinese university of Hong Kong, shares the similar view as Joyce Savidge.3 People started to hold the Bun Festival when a bubonic plague was spread throughout Hong Kong in 1977. After having the Jiao, the plague stopped. In order to thanks Beidi, the Jiao is therefore held every year. The Bun Festival was originally held on Taipingshan, Hong Kong Island, which later moved to Cheung Chau, as fire regulations were tightened. Before 1970s, only the Huizhou(惠州) people could join the ceremony. The Huizhou people, according to Professor Choi, believed that if letting the outsiders join, Beidi would get angry and punish them. In the interview conducted by Choi, the Huizhou people cited typhoon Wanda as example. In 1962, the organizer of the festival, instead of the Huizhou priest, he invited Chaozhou priests to perform the rituals. Then typhoon Wanda struck later and so the people thought that the organizer had angered the deities. However, as people nowadays become more scientific and religion does not play such an important role in their lives, everyone can join the ceremony and the parade and the ‘scramble for bun’ competition become a must –see events for tourists visiting Hong Kong. 1 Joyce Savidge, This is Hong Kong: Temples (Hong Kong: A Hong Kong Government Publication, 1977), p. 82. 2 Ibid. 3 Martin Williams. A Brief History of the Cheung Chau Bun Festival. 2007. 20 May 2008 <http://www.cheungchauhk.com/cheung-chau-history/brief-history-cheung-chau-bun-festival>. 1 1978 and 2005 were the two turning points of the Bun festival. The ‘scramble for bun’ competition was banned in 1978 as one of the bun towers collapsed, resulting over 100 people being injured. The activity restarted in 2005 but the regulations have changed. All towers’ framework has to be made by metal and only 12 competitors are allowed to join. All of them have to use safety harnesses. The way to deal with the buns also changed. Traditional buns are replaced by plastic buns and all of them are wrapped up by plastic bags. Though the former practices are changed, more people are attracted to join the activity after the ‘scramble for bun’ competition is resumed. After all, the ‘scramble for bun’ competition is an exciting game and a food sport that people are not willing to miss. Introduction As religion played an important role in the lives of Hong Kong people in the past, there were many rituals that people had to strictly stick to. For example, only the Huizhou people could join the ceremony. Yet, as time progresses, the focus of the people switched from religion to economic development. People try every means to gain money and they see the Bun Festival as a very good opportunity to do so. Therefore, starting from around 1960s, the Bun Festival changed from a religious ceremony to a tourist attraction which contributes to Hong Kong economy. To appeal to different people, instead of worshipping gods and goddesses, various themes are added to the parade and will be changed every year. Besides, manufacturers develop brands of the Cheung Chau Bun Festival and design products that contain the festival’s characteristics. In addition, the Bun Festival now also serves as an occasion that the people stay in Cheung Chau and those who have left get together and have a fun time with their family members. Cheung Chau is an island that has still not yet fully developed. In order to have a better prospect, young people in Cheung Chau usually would leave and live in the city centre. Since the older generation will stay in Cheung Chau and they are not available due to their work, the young people seldom see their family members. The annual Cheung Chau Bun Festival provides an excellent opportunity for them to have reunions with their relatives and friends. Cheung Chau Bun Festival is one of the traditional local festivals and is a heritage of Hong Kong. Yet, during the long development of it, the colonial government did not play an active role to preserve it. After reunited with China, the HKSAR government changed a lot of the practices and the rituals of the Bun Festival. 2 To a certain extent, the government accelerated the fading of it. However, unlike the colonial government, the HKSAR government did not ban everything. It even included the festival as one of the tourists’ attractions in the tourists guide and made Cheung Chau the Recommended District of May. This is mostly the Bun Festival can help to boost Hong Kong’s tourism and has the value of national education. The Cheung Chau Bun Festival is a festival originated in Hong Kong and its changes reflects the changes in Hong Kong people, especially the Cheung Chau locals’ lives and values. This paper will therefore first discuss the change and continuity of Hong Kong tradition and culture, as reflected in the Bun Festival. Second, it will analyze the roles played by the colonial government before 1997 and the HKSAR government in arousing public’s awareness of the preservation of local heritage. The change of tradition and culture The Jiao Festival or what the present-day tourists refer to the Bun Festival has been celebrated since the bubonic plague hit Hong Kong in the second half of the 19th century. Despite the continuation of the celebration for more than a century, it has in fact undergone several changes in traditions and culture during this period when comparing the festival in the past and that of the present-day. Changes have taken place in the rituals of the Bun Festival. The Bun Festival is a three-day event which contains a number of rituals to be held respectively on each day. The Bun Festival Parade and the Bun Scrambling Competition are the key attractions and the highlights of the celebration. However, the two rituals of today do not really look exactly the same as that of the past. According to Mr. Lee Kin Ding4, the President of the Cheungchau Beishe Jiefang Hui(長洲北社街坊會), at the beginning, the Bun Festival Parade was only a parade to place back the statues of several gods and goddesses back into different temples after the sacrificial rite finished and to in order show gratitude to their blessings, there was lion dance on the way. It was until 1925, a man from Huizhou who lived in Cheung Chau introduced the ‘modern way’ of parade that imitated the zou gu shi(走古事) of the fo shan qiu se(佛山秋色) with people dressed up like the mythological figures or household figures in the novels and being held up with wires and struts to there. The parade is a key spotlight of tourists. There are banner-men, lion dancers, stick-dancers, 4 Mr. Lee Kin Ding is our informant. 3 percussion bands and small children dress up elaborately and heavily made-up, balance magically on the poles or the handles of axes, staking stately above the crowds.5 Today, children do not only dress up like historical or mythological figures, but also celebrities, politicians such as Donald Tsang, Anson Chan, characters of TV drama series and figures relating to current issues, for example, the torchbearer and the equestrian that represent the Beijing Olympics. All these make the festival more fascinating and entertaining. The Bun Scrambling Competition which is held on the same day of the parade at midnight is the climax of the festival. The Bun Scrambling Competition had once been banned by the colonial government due to the collapse of one of the bun towers injuring more than a hundred people and a certain number of deaths in 1978. In the article ‘A Brief History of the Cheung Chau Bun Festival’, it reveals the secret of how the event was like 30years ago.6 The bun towers were all made of bamboo, and around 60 feet high. There were neither any safety regulations nor even thoughts of safety of the competition. All the young men swarm all over the towers like ‘bees over a honeycomb’ with bare hands and to collect the buns as fast as they could. The exciting event usually lasts for around 10 minutes and after that, only ‘three sorry-looking frames of bamboo, tattered paper and rough string’ were left. The halt of the Bun Scrambling Competition had lasted for a few decades. In 2005, HKSAR government finally approved the request from the Bun Festival organizers to restart the scramble.7 Yet, the government revived the tradition in a cautious manner.

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