Feasts and Fêtes

The loudest and proudest traditional festival, Chinese New Year, brings Hong Kong to a standstill each year. Shops shut down, and everywhere you look there are red and gold signs, kumquat trees, and pots of yellow chrysanthemums, all considered auspicious. On the lunar new year's eve the crowds climax at the flower market and fair in Victoria Park; on the first night there's a colorfully noisy parade; on the second night the crowds ooh and ahh at the no-costs-spared fireworks display over the harbor. (1st day of 1st moon, usually late Jan.-early Feb.)

The Chinese New Year festivities end with the overwhelmingly red Lantern Festival. Hong Kong's green spaces—especially Victoria Park—become a sea of light as people, mostly children, gather with beautifully shaped paper or cellophane lanterns. It's also a traditional day for playful matchmaking, so it's particularly auspicious for single people. (15th day of 1st moon, usually Feb.)

Ancestor worship is important, and on Ching Ming families meet to sweep the graves of departed relatives and burn paper offerings in respect for them. (3rd moon, Apr. 4 or 5)

Thousands make the yearly trip to Cheung Chau Island for the exuberant Cheung Chau Bun Festival, a four-day-long Taoist thanksgiving feast. A procession of children dressed as gods winds its way toward Pak Tai Temple, where 60-foot towers covered in buns quiver outside. (8th day of 4th moon, usually May)

The Dragon Boat Festival pits long, multi-oared dragon-head boats against one another in races to the shore; the biggest event is held at Stanley Beach. It commemorates the hero Qu Yuan, a poet and scholar who drowned himself in the 3rd century BC to protest government corruption. These days it's one big beach party. (5th day of 5th moon, usually June)

Smoldering piles of paper are everywhere during the Hungry Ghosts Festival. Replicas of houses, cars, and Monopoly-style "hell money" are burned as offerings to the ancestral spirits allowed to roam the earth for these two weeks, when the gates of hell are opened. (15th day of 7th moon, usually Aug.-Sept.)

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, families and friends gather to admire the full moon while munching on moon cakes, which are traditionally stuffed with red-bean or lotus-seed paste. Colorful paper lanterns fill Hong Kong's parks, and a 220-foot-long "fire dragon" dances through the streets of Tai Hang near Victoria Park. (15th day of 8th moon, usually Sept.-Oct.)