Latest news with #PeterPARKS
eNCA
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- eNCA
Traditional culture, fancy dress meet at Hong Kong's raucous bun festival
HONG KONG -Kids dressed as real and fantasy heroes, drummers pounding a beat and sweet treats offered to powerful gods -- thousands of visitors poured onto a small island in Hong Kong for its annual Bun Festival on Monday. Held on the Chinese city's outlying Cheung Chau, the raucous five-day festival transforms the usually quiet fishing community into an explosion of colour and noise that blends Cantonese traditions with modern culture and draws locals and tourists alike. Monday's three-hour parade -- known as "Piu Sik", meaning floating colours -- traditionally saw locals march through town with statues of local gods. These days, local children dress up as both real and imaginary figures, including Olympic fencing champion Cheung Ka Long, Ne Zha from a recent Chinese blockbuster animation, and the legendary Monkey King, Sun Wukong. AFP | Peter PARKS The five-day Bun Festival is said to date back to the 1800s, when fisherfolk drove away pirates and the plague by parading a statue of Taoist sea deity Pak Tai. "It's my first time to visit the island and this showed me a new Hong Kong, completely different from downtown," Cedric Linet, a 49-year-old French banker, told AFP. The buns represent good fortune, holding sweet bean paste in a crumbly pastry marked with Chinese characters for "peace" and "safety". Crowds queued all day to get hold of the buns, used to make offerings to traditional deities and sacrifices to the souls of the dead. The climax of the festival comes at midnight, when contestants climb a 14-metre high tower covered in buns -- hoping to be crowned "King of Kings" or "Queen of Queens". AFP | Peter PARKS Among those gathered were tourists from Communist Party-ruled mainland China, keen to get a glimpse of traditional Chinese culture not often seen back home. Chinese students studying in Hong Kong, Gao Yidan and Cheng Qi, said they learnt about the festival on Xiaohongshu, an app similar to Instagram. "The atmosphere of traditional culture is very strong here," Gao told AFP. Another visitor from China's southwestern Sichuan province said she appreciated Hong Kong's celebrations of Buddha's birthday, which fell on Monday. "We love the crowded atmosphere here, even though today's very hot," Huang Dan, a 42-year-old housewife, told AFP. By Tommy Wang
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Arsenal, Tottenham to play pre-season North London derby in Hong Kong
An aerial view of the Kai Tak Sports Park, where Arsenal will play Tottenham in a pre-season friendly later this year (Peter PARKS) Arsenal will play Tottenham in a pre-season friendly in Hong Kong, the first North London derby to be held outside the United Kingdom, the clubs said Monday, while Liverpool will meet AC Milan. The London rivals will play at the southern Chinese city's new 50,000-capacity Kai Tak Stadium on July 31. Advertisement "Playing against Tottenham Hotspur in the magnificent new Kai Tak Stadium will be a great experience for both teams and supporters, and will be a very important part of our pre-season preparations ahead of the new season," said Arsenal's managing director Richard Garlick. Liverpool will play Serie A giants Milan on July 26 at the same stadium. It will be a replay of the classic 2005 Champions League final, which the Reds won on penalties after being 3-0 down at half-time. Arne Slot's Liverpool are likely to head to Hong Kong as Premier League champions -- they are currently 12 points clear with nine games left. Advertisement Liverpool will also travel to Japan for the first time during pre-season, the club said, without giving dates. Hong Kong this month officially opened a major $3.85 billion sports park with futuristic Kai Tak Stadium the centrepiece of it. The stadium saw its first major event at the weekend when it hosted the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens with more than 110,000 spectators attending over three days. It is all part of efforts to restore the city's image, which took a battering after political protests and a Beijing-imposed national security law. Visitor numbers to Hong Kong also plummeted during almost three years of strict Covid curbs and have only recently begun to recover. pst/dh
