Residents of Kam Tin decked out their northern corner of the city with towering flower boards and a vast bamboo stage for the Taoist Jiao festival, which dates back over 300 years.
The five-storey-tall, 42,000-sq-ft stage won a Guinness World Record this month for being the biggest temporary bamboo structure and carries deeper resonance after a deadly fire devastated the city in November.
“I found it truly awe-inspiring,” Lee, a 30-year-old onlooker, told AFP. “It’s remarkably well-built and rich in traditional elements.”
The burning of the 5m-tall paper “Ghost King” marked the climax of the festival, which was attended by thousands.
The ritual was allegedly begun by the Tang clan in 1685 to honour local officials who helped them reclaim their coastal homes after government evictions.
The multi-day festival is one of Hong Kong’s longest-running traditional events, and features lion and dragon dances, Cantonese opera and puppet shows. Dazzlingly illuminated boards around the village proclaimed hopes for good weather and abundant harvests.
The event took over a year to plan and cost nearly HK$20 million (RM10.5 million), organiser Derek Tang said.
Locals come every 10 years to make offerings at the altar and enjoy historical crafts like bamboo construction, he told AFP.
Threatened tradition
Hong Kong’s use of bamboo construction materials has been in the spotlight since the huge fire killed at least 161 people in Tai Po district last month.
Authorities said the blaze at the under-repair housing estate was likely made worse by protective netting that failed fire-resistance standards. The netting was hung from bamboo scaffolding encasing several tower blocks.
Scaffolder Lai Chi-ming, 52, told AFP the disappearance of the centuries-old craft would be a “great loss” for the city. Alongside more than a dozen master craftsmen, he spent two months building the altar in Kam Tin, which used about 30,000 bamboo and fir poles.
Rapid urbanisation has made villagers more anxious to maintain their local identity, noted cultural anthropologist Liu Tik-sang.
“They really want to preserve their traditions in their way. The purpose of the festival’s scale is to tell everyone that this means a lot to them,” he said.
Organiser Tang said such events also face challenges from declining numbers of young people and waning interest in traditional culture.
“We must not abandon our traditional Chinese culture because of urban development,” he stressed.