This weekend we had several more "uniquely Hong Kong" experiences. The first was Friday night when we went to see the Tai Hang Fire Dragon dance.
To say it was complete mayhem hardly describes it. A mob of men, running toward the crowds, with a rope full of incense sticks was like nothing we'd ever seen before ("lawsuit waiting to happen" ran through my mind a few times). I found a video clip of the event on YouTube - watch the first minute and 30 seconds and you'll get the idea!
More on OUR preparations for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in a future post...
The event was supposed to start at 7:30 p.m. and we arrived what we thought was right on time. The crowd was thick (as usual) and there were some drums beating and flags flying, but nothing else was happening.
We wove our way through the people and took a detour down a side street where we saw the dragon being prepared for the dance. According to the literature handed to me, the dragon was 220 feet long, divided in 32 segments, all of which are stuffed with straw and incense sticks.
While waiting for the performance to begin, we learned the story behind the fire dragon. In 1880, the villagers of Tai Hang killed a serpent on a stormy night. The serpent's body disappeared by the next morning...then a few days later a plague broke out, killing many villagers. Meanwhile, a village elder saw Buddha in a dream and was told to perform the fire dragon dance and burn fire crackers. As the story goes, the villagers followed these directions and the sulphur in the fire crackers drove away the disease and saved the village. Each year the Fire Dragon Dance is performed during the Mid-Autumn Festival in memory of the incident.
Armed with all that knowledge, we were anxious for the dragon to appear. And we waited. And waited. A friend that was with us asked a Chinese woman when the dragon would come out. The woman replied, "every 150 years." We really hoped that there was a misunderstanding!
Lydia and the other kids with us could hardly stand another minute of waiting, when suddenly there was a roar from the crowd down the street...the Fire Dragon Dance had begun!
To say it was complete mayhem hardly describes it. A mob of men, running toward the crowds, with a rope full of incense sticks was like nothing we'd ever seen before ("lawsuit waiting to happen" ran through my mind a few times). I found a video clip of the event on YouTube - watch the first minute and 30 seconds and you'll get the idea! The dragon ran up and down the street over and over again. We realized that it would probably continue until all the incense sticks burned and we knew we wouldn't last that long!
We wandered through a large park on our way to the bus stand. It decorated with some beautiful lanterns in preparation for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.
More on OUR preparations for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in a future post... 
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