Chung Yeung Festival (Hong Kong)
The Chung Yeung Festival, occurring on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese calendar, is a significant public holiday in Hong Kong, often referred to as the "double-nine" festival. This festival is rooted in an ancient Chinese legend involving a fortuneteller named Fei Chang-fei, who advised a scholar, Huan Jing, to flee into the hills with his family to escape a catastrophe. In gratitude for their survival, families commemorate this event by picnicking in the hills and paying respects at their ancestors' graves. During this time, it is customary to make offerings of food, paper money, and symbolic items like paper winter clothing. Traditional cakes known as "ko" and chrysanthemums, which bloom in this season, are also prominent elements of the celebration. Interestingly, while the festival is widely recognized in Hong Kong, it does not hold the same status as a public holiday in mainland China. This reflects Hong Kong's unique cultural blend, where traditional Chinese customs remain vibrant despite its historical interactions with foreign powers.
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Chung Yeung Festival (Hong Kong)
Chung Yeung Festival (Hong Kong)
The ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese calendar marks the Chung Yeung festival, a public holiday in the Asian city-state of Hong Kong. It is sometimes nicknamed the “double-nine” festival due to the date on which it falls in the calendar.
Hong Kong is a densely populated area on the southern coastline of the People's Republic of China. It consists mostly of small islands, including Hong Kong Island where the city itself lies, and some territory on the mainland which includes the urban district of Kowloon. More than seven million people live in Hong Kong, giving parts of it some of the highest population densities in the world. It was taken from the old Chinese Empire by the British during the nineteenth century but was finally returned to the Chinese in 1997 under a special arrangement. Hong Kong was allowed to retain its thriving capitalist economy for at least fifty years in addition to receiving certain other privileges, and re-entered China as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. More than 90 percent of the population is of Chinese descent, and so traditional Chinese customs and holidays are still quite popular despite the many years of foreign rule. One such festival is Chung Yeung, although oddly enough Chung Yeung is not a public holiday within China itself.
Chung Yeung honors an ancient Chinese legend which states that sometime during the latter years of the third century b.c., Fei Chang-fei, a fortuneteller, told Huan Jing, a scholar, to save his family by taking them out of their village into the hills in order to avoid an unspecified threat to their lives. He obeyed, and according to tradition he brought a jug of wine and some food with him. When Jing and his family returned, they found that a plague had killed all of their livestock, a blight that could have easily consumed them as well.
On Chung Yeung, Chinese families symbolically reenact the event by going into any neighboring hills or mountains around their communities for a picnic. They also pay homage at the graves of their ancestors, where they make offerings of special paper money and paper winter clothing in addition to food such as traditional cakes known as ko. Due to the time at which the celebration is held and the version of the legend detailing that Huan Jing brought chrysanthemum wine with him to conquer the threat, chrysanthemums, which bloom during that season, are often part of the celebration as well.
Bibliography
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"Hong Kong." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 15 Mar. 2020, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/hk.html. Accessed 17 Apr. 2020.
Koon, Wee Kek. "Chung Yeung Festival: Has the Celebration Lost Its True Meaning?" Post Magazine, 26 Oct. 2017, www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/2116950/chung-yeung-festival-has-celebration-lost-its. Accessed 17 Apr. 2020.
Tsui, Stephanie. "Hill Fires and a Mythical Swordsman: Chung Yeung Festival in Hong Kong Explained." South China Morning Post, 13 Oct. 2018, www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2168089/hill-fires-and-mythical-swordsman-chung-yeung. Accessed 17 Apr. 2020.