Enjoyed the Tin Hau Festival celebrates the birthday of tin Hau, also known as the Queen of Heaven and goddess of the Sea. Celebrated on the 23rd day of the third month of the lunar calendar this year's Tin Hau festival falls on 25th April 2011 (Monday). Legend has it that Tin Hau, daughter of a fisherman who was born in China's Fujian Province, has visions enabling her to predict storms and even saved people from drowning. Consequently, fishermen adopted her as their patron saint and Tin Hau temples can be found wherever there are fishing communities in southern China. during this annual festival, fishermen make a pilgrimage to pray for protection on the high seas and for full nets in the year ahead. Yuen Long, a traditional new Territories market town where fishermen sell their catches, is home to one of the biggest Tin Hau celebrations. This Tin Hau Temple was built some 300 years ago and villagers adopted Tin Hau as their protector against marauders.
I missed the actual parade thru the streets which from the confetti in the street when I arrived told the story of Mardi Gras, New Territories style. The New Territories are on the north side of the mountain range from Kowloon which is on the Harbour and across from Hong Kong Island. The train ride took 3 stops and about 30 minutes but was well worth the journey. I arrived at the Temple where the various community fishermen all presented Gigantic offerings to Tin Hau. They beat drums and symbols and pranced their elaborately colored dragons in and around the temple. It was just incredible.
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| New Territories, Location of the Tin Hau Festival. |
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| They are just so Cute. Lions and Tigers and Bears...Oh My! Ok so it is a Dragon but just play along. |
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| Banners line the street of the parade route and confetti is everywhere. |
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| Elaborate Displays to the the Deity...Tin Hau |
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| Street Decorations |
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| Building decorations |
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| Building exterior art...having nothing to so with the festival...just awesome. |
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| more building decorations |
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| I think they went this way...but I could be wrong...?!?!?! |
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| Drummer chariots and flags |
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| Dragon kissing security guard....kinda cute. |
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| These are elaborately decorated offerings to the Deity...Tin Hua, there are food, and enough bling to deck out a few dozen drag queens bonnets for Easter in the Park back home. |
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| Flaggers and Dragons, Drummers and Symbolist were the festivities of the day. |
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| baby Dragon paying his respect at the alter. I was so caught up in all the colorful festivities i forgot to even get a picture of the actual temple. Silly me. |
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| Carmen Miranda ain't got nothing on this headware. |
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| Dragons seem to follow the bouncing disco ball. The disco ball holder is like the drum major of the marching band along with 20 other guys/girls with whistles that they constantly blow to tell the dragon boys how to move with the body of the dragon it really is like a choreographed productions. So fun! |
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| It gets hot under there as well as the dragon poles get heavy. There are teams of about 30 people that switch in and out during the dragons prance thru the temple. |
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| Drummers and Symbols keep the spirits attention so they are a banging and clanging all day long. If I could have gotten the SMILE off my face, I may have gotten a headache, but it was an extraordinary experience. All the time there are people pay their tribute at the temple with incense and hug paper offerings that were burned in large dumpsters and kilns. the smoke was intense and my feet were black when I got back to the Hostel. i shed 4 lbs once I washed off all the soot. |
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| Packing it in and heading for home. another awesome day in The New Territories, Hong Kong, China |
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