During celebrations of local deities’ birthdays and in festive events in the New Territories, people can always enjoy the “qilin dance” performance. “Qilin” is a legendary animal and one of the four benevolent animals in Chinese mythology, along with the dragon, phoenix and tortoise. Hakka qilin dance veteran AU YEUNG Shu-nin has been fond of animal dances since he was young. He can make qilin heads. This day, he brings his apprentices up to the mountain late at night to hold a consecration ceremony for the newly-made qilin. Since the qilin is deemed an auspicious animal, qilin dancers have to follow a lot of etiquette rules. For instance, a qilin dance parade must be led by a qilin dance master. Besides, the dancers have to be able to express different emotions of the qilin like merriness, suspicion, surprise and anger. Haifeng qilin is also known as “Hoklo” qilin. The unadorned and straightforward style of the Hoklo qilin dance is completely different from that of the Hakka qilin dance, which is in a more agile style. “Hoklo boxing” coach CHEUNG Man-sing teaches Luoshan-style martial arts as well as Haifeng qilin dance. He believes that having solid punching and kicking skills is the prerequisite for being able to use weapons. In order to master the Haifeng qilin dance, punching and kicking drills and horse stance training are fundamental with no shortcuts to success. Every year, on 21 July in the Lunar Calender, the Tin Hau Parade in Peng Chau is the ideal opportunity to see the Haifeng qilin dance. You will also see the custom of the qilin rushing to the temple, which is believed to bring good fortune. However, the popularity of this bold and powerful behemoth has been increasingly threatened by the adorable-looking and smaller-sized Southern Lion in recent years. Dongguan qilin dance used to be the predominant animal dance performed in walled villages in the New Territories. Nevertheless, this auspicious animal, which is considered the symbol of vil
Theatrical Performances to Give Thanks to the Deities Every time it approaches 13 February in the Chinese calendar, villagers of Kau Sai Chau at East Sea in Sai Kung return to their home village to help organise and celebrate the Hung Shing Festival, whether or not they are scattered all around Hong Kong or live overseas. One of the highlights is a series of traditional Chinese theatrical performances (shengongxi) that replaces edible offerings with xiqu, with the aims of giving thanks to gods for their blessings, as well as entertaining deities, ghosts and humans. In addition to Cantonese Opera, local shengongxi also includes Chiu Chow Opera and Hoklo Opera, which are also known as “Baizi Opera”. According to an ancient monument in Tai O’s Kwan Tai Temple, shengongxi in Hong Kong can be traced back to the second year of Xianfeng’s reign (1852) of the Qing Dynasty. A major characteristic of shengongxi is the building of bamboo theatres. This unparalleled craftsmanship has recently been inscribed in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Hong Kong by the government. Among the numerous bamboo theatres for shengongxi in the city, the one built for Tin Hau Festival on Po Toi Island is exceptionally extraordinary. Situated on a cliff, this theatre demonstrates phenomenal craftsmanship that rivals the Creator’s work. In Cantonese Opera’s shengongxi, there are specific requirements in terms of the stage’s location and room arrangement in the backstage. For instance, the stage should face exactly the front of the temple as long as possible, and the live orchestra is to sit on the right of the stage. In the backstage, the space in the middle is divided into six private dressing rooms for actors in the six leading roles, while the area next to them is used by other actors. As for the passageway between the six dressing rooms and the frontstage, the left side is the “costume area” for placing costume trunks, whereas the right side is the “mi
Every series of shengongxi in Cantonese Opera features set pieces, common examples of which include Eight Immortals Bestowing Longevity, Blessings for Promotion, and Fairy Delivers Her Son to his Mortal Father. Retaining the musical structures, tunes, language and customs of Cantonese Opera in the early years, set pieces are regarded as the art form’s living history. The storyline of Grand Birthday Celebration at Mount Heung Fa revolves around Avalokitesvara (the Goddess of Mercy) and can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty. This opera is truly a classic set piece, with records showing that the piece was performed in Hong Kong in as early as 1900. Every year on the birthday of the patron god for Cantonese Opera, a large number of artists gather to perform this piece to celebrate the occasion. In the “weaving” scene featuring five martial actors, there are 41 stylised moves described in the ancient libretto, including “Candles on the Belly”, “Facing the River and Looking at the Sea”, “Throwing Logs of Wood”, “Paddling the Dragon Boat”, and “The Boy Worshipping Avalokitesvara”, which all have extraordinary names and various moves. Nevertheless, as artists of the previous generations passed away one by one, the new generations often have only heard about but never seen these moves with incomplete information. These age-old traditions must be saved without delay. Witnessing the gradual loss of traditional set pieces, Cantonese Opera artists in Hong Kong felt obligated to preserve and pass on these traditions. As such, they came together and hoped to re-stage the full version of Grand Birthday Celebration at Mount Heung Fa in the festive occasion celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. In order to make this happen, the city’s Cantonese Opera artists put thoughts into action. Not only did they do preparation here in Hong Kong, but they also travelled north together to Guangzhou, where they wished to retrieve lost information about the “
To the indigenous villagers in Hong Kong, paper-craft making is like a cycle. Every year, it appears in festivals, celebration activities, sacrificed offerings and religious ceremonies of all scales throughout the year. It constitutes a crucial part of the inhabitants’ lives, from one’s birth, growth to marriage. The Spring Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. In the walled villages in the New Territories, there is the traditional custom of “lantern lighting”. In the southern Chinese dialects, such as Hokkien, Hakka and the Weitou dialect, the characters “燈” (lanterns) and “丁” (male offspring) share similar pronunciation, so that “lantern lighting” symbolises having new male offspring, which represents the inhabitants’ strong hope for life. “Fa pao” (flower canon) is a unique traditional tribute which is a paper-craft altar used in celebration activities in Hong Kong in order to worship statues of different gods. In the old days, after worshipping the deities, villagers would have a game of scrambling for fa pao. But now it is replaced by a lot drawing ceremony. If a desirable lot is drawn, it means the person is going to have the blessings of the deities and everything will run smoothly in the upcoming year. Qilin has been venerated by Hakka people. In celebrations of local deities’ birthdays and festive events or occasions like weddings, moving in and “Ta Chiu” celebration, the qilin dance can always be seen, so as to bring about good luck and fortune. Since paper-craft items can show the imaginary images by 3D models, it is possible for the qilin to stay “alive” nowadays. Paper-craft products are not merely ordinary handicrafts. By making use of paper and bamboo, they form the radian of life. In order to make a paper-craft item, the processes of “binding, paper-mounting, painting, assembling” must be gone through, which resemble a person’s life: to make the skeleton of the paper-craft item by binding bamboo stripes with paper
Bone-setting goes way back in history. It was called “battlefield medicine” in Zhou dynasty and “osteopathy” in Song dynasty, up until Qing dynasty. “Bone-setting” is the name commonly used in the Canton area. It is often said that medicine and martial art originate from the same family and root. Bone-setting is indeed closely linked to martial art. LAM Kwok-keung from Yuen Long’s Shek Po Tsuen is a third-generation bone-setter whose grandfather acquired bone-setting skills precisely by practising martial art. More than a century ago, villagers of Shek Po Tsuen sent LAM’s grandfather to Dongguan as a martial art apprentice, in order to safeguard their water supply and properties. When he returned, he taught the villagers what he had learnt and formed a team of village guards. Back then, LAM’s grandfather learnt martial art as well as bone-setting, which made him a bone-setter in the village, and his skills are passed to the next generations. Around the time of the Second World War, many martial art masters moved to Hong Kong from the Mainland China. Among them is WONG Fei-hung’s widow MOK Kwai-lan, who established a marital art school on Gloucester Road in Wan Chai. On the roof she taught WONG’s martial art, lion dance and bone-setting techniques. Before she passed away, her godson and successor, LI Chan-wo, promised to inherit and promote WONG’s legacies. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the popularity of martial art triggered many men’s interest in learning martial art and bone-setting, giving rise to another generation of local bone-setters, including master TONG Wing-hong. Recently, a new ordinance has subjected Chinese medicine to more regulations and categorised bone-setting as one of the main branches of Chinese medicine. All the bone-setting clinics across Hong Kong thus have to be renamed. Furthermore, bone-setting used to be studied in the form of apprenticeship, but is now taught in schools. In the past, bone-setters collected fresh herbs from the mo
The melodious nanyin (southern tunes) is sorrow-provoking. While nanyin in the broad sense can be traced to ancient times, we are unable to ascertain when exactly Guangdong’s nanyin emerged. During Daoguang’s reign in the Qing dynasty, there was a book called Cantonese Folk Songs, which is a compilation of numerous 7-character sentences written in Cantonese and remains the earliest known folk literature of narrative singing in the Canton region. In the early 20th century, nanyin was widely-liked in Hong Kong. Among the most talented local singers of dishui nanyin at that time was DOU Wun, who was praised as a virtuoso blind musician. He was born in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, in 1910, and lost his eyesight permanently when he was just 3 months old. At the age of 7, he was brought by his family to a blind musician to learn fortune-telling. Later, DOU went to live in Guangzhou with his master. However, DOU had no passion for fortune-telling; instead, he took pleasure in slapping a bamboo plank with another, and in singing wooden fish tunes on the street as a way to earn a living. Gradually, DOU got close to some blind musicians who sang nanyin, and became SUEN Sang’s student. The 1920’s and 1930’s were turbulent times in Mainland China, so DOU came to Hong Kong to make a living. Back then, prostitution was still legal in the city. DOU enjoyed popularity among prostitutes and clients for his fabulous singing until prostitution was banned in 1935, which seriously affected his livelihood. After the war, he performed as a street singer again, but nanyin lovers no longer lingered in alleys, instead they listened to radio broadcasts in herbal tea shops or at home. However, DOU had already gained some fame at that time. Therefore, he was later invited by Radio Hong Kong to perform at the radio station regularly until the programme was terminated in 1970. In order to make a living, he had no choice but to go back on the street and perform in front of Sun Wah Theartre on Arg
In preparing Poon Choi, which means “basin meal”, ingredients cooked in advance are placed layer by layer in a basin, starting from the bottom. The more refined the ingredient is, the upper layer it forms. There are no specific rules in terms of what to put in a Poon Choi, but in general it includes Chinese turnips, deep-fried tofu, bean curd robes, shiitake mushrooms, and stewed pork, which is the essence of the whole Poon Choi and most challenging to make. Poon Choi feast has been the traditional banquet of indigenous inhabitants of walled villages in the New Territories for centuries. Whether it is a wedding, a newborn baby boy, the Jiao festival or moving into a new house that a family would like to celebrate, the host family do not even need sending out invitation cards. They only have to post a red notice announcing the arrangements of the Poon Choi feast on the village’s notice board or their own door, and their relatives and friends will come to the feast naturally, either in the ancestral hall or grain hall (the place where threshing used to be done). Gathering villagers in a Poon Choi feast also serves as a crucial process in the confirmation of identity. In the first lunar month of the year, any family with a boy newly born in the previous year will light up a lamp in the ancestral hall, and invite fellow villagers to a “lamp gathering”, which is a Poon Choi feast in celebration of the newly born male. It is only after all these ceremonies that a newborn male is officially accepted as a member of the village and entitled to inheriting his great-grandfather’s legacy. As for weddings traditionally, a couple wed and pay tribute to ancestors inside the ancestral hall. After the bride formally became part of the groom’s family, the couple invite their relatives to a day-long feast of Poon Choi and wine, which implies their acknowledgement of the marriage. To many walled villagers, gathering in a Poon Choi feast symbolises unity and equality. Major cla
According to Guangya, “jiao” is offerings. In Shouwen Jiezi, jiao equals to the coming-of-age ceremony, wedding ceremony and sacrificial offerings. Therefore, jiao means to worship god, to pray for good luck, as well as to celebrate. Hong Kong’s jiao festivals can be divided into two main types – Tai Ping Qing Jiao and On Lung Qing Jiao. The former is mostly found in local walled villages and the latter in Hakka communities. Jiao festivals in different districts are all organised regularly, with a majority of them being held once in a decade. The more frequently-held jiao festivals, like the one in Cheung Chau, are organised every year while the most infrequent one, Sheung Shui Heung’s Tai Ping Qing Jiao, is organised once in every 60 years. From the religious perspective, people can “clean” a place by jiao festivals since the celebrations will bring a brand new start to the whole universe, thus making everybody work hard and carry on with their lives. Socially, as some of the jiao festivals are held once in a long period of time, villagers can meet again at the celebration events. As a result, jiao festivals have become a very precious social occasion for villagers to reunite. The lack of information regarding the history of Hong Kong’s jiao festivals makes it difficult to find out when this custom first commenced. However, most of the festivals are related to the main temples of the respective villages. For instance, as shown in the genealogy of the Tang clan in Kam Tin, Tai Ping Qing Jiao was run for the first time in the area in the 24th year of the Kangxi reign (1685) and the Chou Wong Yi Kung Study Hall was the venue of the event. In Hong Kong, jiao festivals are generally Taoist religious assemblies. Most of the ceremonies are held by Taoist priests from the branch of the Orthodox Unity of “Tianshi fu (天師府)”. Master CHEN Jun, who comes from Guangsheng Tang in Shajing village in Bao’an County within Shenzhen, frequents different jiao festivals of v
Among the commonly-seen religious rituals held by villages in Hong Kong, Tai Ping Qing Jiao is of the largest scale. However, there is an even more high-profile Taoist jiao festival, the Taishang Golden Register Ritual and Great Ritual Offerings to the All-Embracing Heaven (also known as Lo Tin Tai Chiu), which invites 1200 deities to come down to earth from the heaven. Lo Tin Tai Chiu seeks to pray for the well-being of the whole world. The emperors officiated in the sacrificial rites in ancient times. The manpower and material resources used were definitely not affordable for the commoners. Therefore, there has never been a time schedule for the jiao festival to be held. Yet, in only a decade, the festival has already been organised twice in Hong Kong in 2007 and 2017 respectively. Nga Tsin Wai Village in Kowloon City is the only walled village left in the urban core, which has a history of more than 700 years. Yet, the lands in the village have all been acquired, and the villagers have moved out for a long time. Thus, it is only a matter of time before the demolition of the village. Nevertheless, the old villagers who have left the village gathered again at the end of 2016 in order to organise Tai Ping Qing Jiao once more. Starting from 2006, the Jiao Festival co-organised by Shek O Village, Tai Long Wan Village, and Hok Tsui Village features two performances of floats on the parade day when sacrificial rituals are conducted, attracting immense crowds. Shek O Village used to be predominately a Hakka community, but now many foreigners reside in this small village and enjoy the immersion into the local culture. Some of them even joined the Shek O Residents Association and partook in the organisation of the Festival. The 280-year-old Lam Tsuen Jiao Festival also introduced some new elements to traditions in 2017. There were talks, exhibitions and newly published books, all because the organisers are convinced that Jiao Festival means more than making wis
Native dialects are the dialects which were widely-used among residents on land in Hong Kong before it was ceded to the United Kingdom, including Weitou and the mainstream Hakka dialect, as well as those that were only popular in specific areas like Tingkok dialect, Tung Ping Chau dialect, Pingpo Hakka dialect and so on. Half a century ago, the number of people in Hong Kong who mainly spoke Cantonese was less than half of the total population. The situation was particularly common in the New Territories, with the majority of the villagers communicating in Weitou and Hakka. The origin of Weitou, which is closely related to the southward migration of the Tang clan, Man clan, Pang clan, Hau clan and Liu clan of the New Territories, can be traced back to the Northern Song Dynasty. Meanwhile, Hakka first appeared in Hong Kong in around the late Ming and the early Qing Dynasty. Within this period, the influence of the rescission of the Evacuation Edict by Qing Emperor Kangxi was the most immense, which made masses of Hakka people in Eastern Guangdong move south to plant the abandoned fields. The Hakka dialect was therefore brought to Hong Kong. The sense of identity of a community is built up by its own dialect. Many Hakka people who have migrated overseas feel a sense of intimacy with one another like a family when they come back to join celebration activities like jiao festivals, as they speak the same dialect with the local villagers. Nevertheless, listening to and speaking these native dialects in Hong Kong nowadays is not easy. For instance, in the Spring and Autumn Ancestral Offerings Ceremonies, which the villagers have placed great importance on, only some of the local villages can preserve the tradition of using Weitou to perform sacrificial rituals. Some villagers who are keen on learning Weitou would seize the opportunity in this rare chance to learn from the older generation on the spot, since it is very difficult to find someone whom they can talk to
Across different times in the history of Hong Kong, Chinese puppetry played an indispensable role in the community’s entertainment and sacrificial rituals. In as early as around the 1870’s, Cantonese rod puppetry already enjoyed massive popularity in Dongguan, which is in close proximity to Hong Kong. As such, there were always puppetry troupes coming to Hong Kong to perform. In a performance of Cantonese rod puppetry, artists support and move puppets that consist only the upper body, and sing meanwhile. This is rarely seen in Hong Kong nowadays. As the leader of Wah Shan Traditional Puppet Chinese Opera, one of the most active troupes currently, CHAN Kam-to has performed shengongxi in various places of the city in the past thirty years or so. However, as audiences have mostly lost interest in puppetry in recent years, he now performs predominantly in Jiao festivals in New Territories, and scarcely in other occasions. In addition to Jiao festivals, temple fairs, consecration ceremonies of temples and festive occasions, the seventh month in the lunar calendar, which the Yu Lan Ghost Festival falls in, used to be also the peak season for puppetry troupes. For instance, Sham Tseng Village invited troupes to perform Chiu Chow iron stick puppetry in the 1960’s. Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, iron stick puppetry was prevalent in Hong Kong. As society became more affluent, the general public has grown to favour shengongxi featuring real artists onstage, resulting in the dissolution of numerous iron stick puppetry troupes. Master WONG Fai from Fujian is an experienced artist in Chinese puppetry. He recalls how overwhelmingly popular traditional Chinese performing arts were in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, when a lot of tourists from the West would like to experience Chinese culture in Hong Kong. In those years, he performed the classic play Tai Ming City every evening in the ballroom of The Mira Hong Kong as part of the Winning Glove Puppets Art Troupe, rece