Fire Dragon Dance

Fire Dragon Dance

This is something that happens just in one part of HK & it occurs for 3 nights around the mid-autumn festival. My Chinese friend, Sophia, was nice enough to accompany me to this festivity. Sophia has lived in HK her entire life & had never been to this event. She was glad that I made her come.

The event involves lots of drumming to build up to the actually dragon dance. There are teams of drummers & they take turns drumming up & down the street. The streets are packed with people all pushing to get to the front. It was very hot & humid, so not much fun being jammed in there with all those people. We waited about an hour before the event actually started. The entire time some man kept repeating the story of the fire dragon dance in Chinese then in English. I think I could have done both myself by the time it was all over. The sacrifices we make to experience culture!

After the drumming, people walk down the street with lanterns, first young girls dressed in traditional dresses carrying lotus flower lanterns, then adults with lanterns with Chinese writing on them. Then as you look up the street you can see lots of smoke. Finally the fire dragon comes down the street. It is very exciting.

The fire dragon is a long (67 meters) thick piece of jute (or similar material). There are men holding it up with large poles at about 5 foot intervals. In the dragon’s body they have placed thousands of sticks of incense. So the incense glows & smokes, giving it the fire effect. The men run with the dragon & move it up & down. It must be very heavy, as the men change holding the poles frequently. As the dragon moves down the street, he periodically stops & the dragon winds it’s body into a huge spiral with the head in the middle. When the spiral is complete the dragon’s head shoots off a huge load of confetti into the air with a big bang. Of course this gets the crowd cheering & shouting.

The head has huge red colored flashlights for eyes & they blink on & off. The tail seems like the most demanding place to be, they changed hands most frequently. I think the tail is supposed to move more than the rest of the dragon & those guys were holding up their end very well!!

The dragon danced around the streets for about 45 minutes going up & down every little side street. Some of the stores had heads of bok choy hanging above their doors for the dragon to eat. I think the brings luck to the establishment if the dragon stops at your store. Sophia & I realized that we didn’t have to fight the crowd for a spot along the front since the dragon was very accessible once the main “show” was over. One of the best things were the beer tables they had set up with 2 for 1 San Miguel beer (the local HK brew). Boy did that taste great after being pressed in with that crowd for so long!

The story of the Fire Dragon Dance:
The area where they have this event used to be a small farming village, called Tai Hang. In 1880 the village experience a python snake infestation that destroyed the crops. Then a plague broke out and many people became sick and died. The leader of the village had a dream that Buddha instructed him to have everyone in the village light fire crackers and perform the fire dragon dance for 3 days and nights during the mid-autumn festival. Sulphur from the firecrackers got rid of the snakes and the plague went away. So ever since then the town has continued the ritual. It has become a major event for the festival time.

They sold these little blow up dragon head with little lights that you put into the eyes that flash red. Lots of the kids had these & it added to the fun of the night. I can see why it is so popular, I think I’d go back, but I wouldn’t worry about fighting the crowd & I’d definitely find the beer table earlier.