HKFP Lens: Hong Kong's Cheung Chau bun festival returns – with fewer visitors than last year
Held annually on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, which coincides with Buddha's Birthday, the Jiao Festival features a parade, lion dance, Chinese opera performances, and concludes with the late-night bun scramble competition.
Islands District Councillor Kwok Wai-man told an RTHK programme on Tuesday that around 40,000 people flocked to this year's festival – down from 51,000 revellers last year.
According to Sun Ferry, which operates the ferry service between Central and Cheung Chau, there were around 44,200 passenger trips as of 9pm on Monday – a 19 per cent drop from last year.
The festival, said to date back to the 1800s, attracts both local residents and foreign tourists. The government downsized the scale of the festival in 2020 to 2022, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. It returned to full scale in 2023, attracting 43,000 people to the island.
One of the festival's highlights was the Piu Sik, which translates as 'Floating Colours' – during which children in fancy dress are held up on towering poles and paraded through the winding streets of the outlying island.
Traditionally, they dress up in satirical costumes mimicking top government officials and lawmakers. This year, some were spotted dressed as Finance Secretary Paul Chan.
In the evening, the island held Cantonese opera performances for deities, known as 'Sun Kung Hei.'
The festival culminated in a late-night scramble by competitors up a precipitous 18-metre 'bun tower' made from imitation buns.
Around 1,650 spectators watched 12 finalists – nine men and three women – collect as many buns as possible within a three-minute time limit.
Ice climber Janet Kung and firefighter Jason Kwok won the competition this year.
Kwok, a 10-time champion, defended the 'Bun King' title, while Kung, a three-time winner, claimed the 'Bun Queen' title.
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The play was soon sold out after its first show in June last year, with critics praising its storytelling and responsiveness to the collective experience of Hongkongers. But others – especially those who had lived overseas – criticised the play as failing to capture the reality of the Hong Kong diaspora. Chan said the criticism not only motivated him to improve the play for this year's re-run but also revealed the underlying rift between Hongkongers abroad and people at home. 'There is a subtle feeling of us failing to understand each other… Perhaps you won't ask them [overseas Hongkongers] how they are in their new homes, or their financial situation, things like that. Similarly, they won't ask you how Hong Kong is,' he said. 'Because, fundamentally, the two people have made very different choices,' he added. 'This conflict cannot be easily resolved by a single play… What I want to do is to tap into it.' 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'The previous exodus was more stable… it was common for people to settle down in the new country and come back to Hong Kong, to visit family or things like that,' he said. 'But this time, a lot more people, who are in their youth or prime, left knowing they will not come back as easily even if they have the chance,' he added. A question that Chan asked overseas Hongkongers in his early interviews was: 'How far from Hong Kong do you think you are now?' 'I remember most of them gave me the impression that they feel far from Hong Kong,' he said, adding that he met many in the diaspora leading lives in flux due to migration. 'Reality check' Chung, the actor who plays the protagonist Ah Yuen in Flowing Warblers, was also Chan's interviewee. She graduated with a degree in Chinese literature in Hong Kong before moving to the UK to study drama in 2016. Much like her character Ah Yuen, Chung returned to Hong Kong towards the end of the pandemic, just as many others from the city were leaving. Prior to her return in early 2023, she had not visited Hong Kong for more than three years. She said that, upon her return, she had to adapt to changes at home following the 2019 protests and the pandemic, despite having learned about the events in the news. 'I have received a lot of information through the internet, like how the government handled the pandemic and people's reactions and their moods. But knowing what happened is one thing, actually living it is another thing,' she told HKFP in Cantonese. It created a 'delay' in understanding Hong Kong's changes compared with her friends at home. 'This delay… is really uncomfortable, because you see yourself as part of the community,' she said. That experience was akin to a 'reality check,' Chung said, citing Ah Yuen's line in the script. 'When [Ah Yuen] returned, she had to observe what was happening in Hong Kong,' Chung said. 'From my reading of the character, she felt powerless to react when the reality hit her.' Chan, the playwright, wanted to capture the stark conflict between people who stay and those who leave. He created the character of Taai-co, played by actor Caroline Chan, who left Hong Kong in hopes of reuniting with Ah Yuen in Europe. But Taai-co was left alone on a foreign continent because of Ah Yuen's return to Hong Kong. A freedom-loving spirit, Taai-co went on the journey alone, but slowly realised her roots as a Hongkonger. The two best friends appear to represent the two groups of Hongkongers – those leaving and those staying. Ah Yuen and Taai-co 'cannot be easily separated, but they also cannot candidly communicate, as both of them are carrying intense emotions,' the playwright said. Flowing Warblers 2.0 The five-night performance of Flowing Warblers last year sparked a rare debate in Hong Kong about the recent exodus and the city's diaspora. In a widely discussed review, playwright Yan Pat-to opined that Flowing Warblers had failed to capture the reality of Hong Kong's diaspora, but also pointed to a mutual misunderstanding among people as the root cause of such failure. 'The people staying in Hong Kong cannot imagine the predicament of those who have left. Likewise… those who have left appeared equally incapable of understanding the situation of those who stayed,' Yan wrote in the Chinese-language review. Asked about this mutual misunderstanding, Chan said it is inevitable that any artistic work cannot represent the full range of human experience. What he wanted to achieve, he said, was to provide the audience with an opportunity to see things differently. 'I think my strategy to write about different characters and their stances is to allow the audience a shift in perspectives, subconsciously,' he said. For the re-run this month, with the play named Flowing Warbler 2.0, Chan and his crew have incorporated what they found missing in the play last year, enriching the details of each storyline. He also hoped the West Kowloon performance, which will open on July 12 and run for seven nights, could spark further interest in the Hong Kong diaspora. It was a pity that last year's debate was short-lived, he said, adding there have been fewer outlets for people to engage in the discussion. Reflecting on Hong Kong's current creative environment, Chan acknowledges there has been uncertainty about 'taboos,' and that playwrights and artists alike have diverted their energy to writing about matters 'skilfully.' 'Frankly speaking, a lot of things could be banned instantly nowadays. But I think there should be a devotion to pushing the boundary and to continuing writing about matters, especially those important to our society,' he said.
