Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival - Fifth Moon, Day 5

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This ancient event, also known as Tuen Ng Festival, commemorates the death of a popular Chinese national hero, Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Mi Lo River over 2,000 years ago to protest against the corrupt rulers. Legend has it that as townspeople attempted to rescue Qu Yuan, they beat drums to scare fish away and threw dumplings into the sea to keep the fish from eating his body.

The real highlight of the festival is the fierce-looking dragon boats racing in a lively, vibrant spectacle. Teams race the elaborately decorated dragon boats to the beat of heavy drums. The special boats, which measure more than 10 metres, have ornately carved and painted "dragon" heads and tails, and each carries a crew of 20-22 paddlers.

Participants train in earnest for the competition. Sitting two abreast, with a steersman at the back and a drummer at the front, the paddlers race to reach the finishing line, urged on by the pounding drums and the roar of the crowds.

Today, festival activities recall this legendary event. People eat rice-and-meat dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves; and many look forward to swimming or even simply dipping their hands in the water.

“Deities’ Parade” in Tai O’s Dragon Boat Festival

During the annual Dragon Boat Festival, three fishermen associations in Tai O, the tranquil fishing village in west Lantau, organise a religious activity known as a "Deities Parade".

On the morning before the Dragon Boat Festival, members of the associations row their dragon boats to visit four temples, Yeung Hau, San Tsuen Tin Hau, Kwan Tai and Hung Shing, and carry the deity statues to their associations' hall for worship.

On the day of the Festival, the deity statues are put on sacred sampans towed by the dragon boats of the associations to parade through Tai O waters and to pacify the wandering water ghosts. 

Residents of the stilt houses along the water-courses burn paper offerings as the dragon boats pass by. The deity statues are then returned to the respective temples after the ritual. Visiting Tai O on Tuen Ng Festival is an excellent timing to see the stilt house and waterways of this old fishing village for which this old fishing village famed for.

The Deities' Parade had been inscribed on to China's third national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2011.