Celebrate Hong Kong's Bun Festival
The buns, bun towers and parade costumes are all prepared by local residents, but the festival attracts visitors from all over the world.
Held each year in a century-old tradition to pray for peace and blessings.
The highlights of the four-day festival are a parade of children in costumes, called "Piu Sik," which translates as "floating color," followed by a midnight "bun-scrambling" competition. Held on the third day of the festival, which is a public holiday, these events are what draw visitors to the island.
In the Piu Sik parade, children dressed as gods or historic characters are carried on stands above the crowds through the island's narrow streets.
During the "bun-scrambling" competition, climbers race up a tower covered with plastic buns. Buns near the top have higher value and the climber who gets the most buns of greatest value wins the race. However, climbers have to make it back down the tower within 3 minutes!
This year nine men and three women took part in the competition hoping to win the titles of "bun king" and "bun queen". Local resident Kwok Ka-ming won the men's competition for the tenth time with 1,131 points, while Janet Kung won the women's competition for the third time with 446 points.
The festival is believed to have begun after a terrible plague on the island of Cheung Chau. Residents followed the local tradition of asking the gods for help and used white steamed buns as offerings to drive away bad spirits.
Nowadays, white steamed buns are eaten as part of the celebrations. They are called "Ping On Bao" in Cantonese, meaning "peace" buns, and are stamped with two red Chinese characters meaning "peace" and "safety."
