Loving so many things Chinese

 Dear Family,

It's a holiday week on this side of the world! Three big holidays piled into the same week and what fun it has been, so buckle-up, there's plenty to share this week and since Dad had his camera out there are lots of pictures. You will think you had been here!  So here we go!

The central holiday is the Mid-Autumn Festival, a lunar holiday that's been celebrated all over China for over 2000 years.  It's considered nearly as big  as Chinese New Year, and a bit like our Thanksgiving. This is an evening celebration where families gather together to eat a big meal,  light lanterns, eat moon cakes and appreciate the round moon. The full moon is a symbol for family reunion, and so it is also known as the Festival of Reunion. 

As I said, lanterns are a big part of the holiday, they represent prosperity and good fortune. Every year at Victoria Park (think Sugarhouse Park) there is a giant lantern event which kind of has the feel of Temple Square at Christmas. When Jill and Mike came back to Hong Kong Wednesday night from their trek to Guilin, we headed down to check it out. 

Just two girls having fun!

So many carefully crafted scenes built with small internal wood frames draped in paper thin silk

Loving a night out together!

So fun to be with family.
You just have to notice that every color represents an independent piece of fabric!

The official Mid-Autumn holiday celebration was on Friday. They closed the office at noon so everyone could go home and prepare their family dinners and gather with extended family. 

Since senior couples didn't have families to go home to it provided the perfect opening for the September senior couples activity Dad and I were in charge of planning. We reserved tables for 29 people at Din Tai Fung, a famous Chinese restaurant and everyone met there for a delicious 90 minutes of complete gluttony!

Look at all those white shirts! 
Dad's had a pretty grueling week at work and by Friday afternoon he'd had it, so we had snuck home early for a 25 minute swim and a costume change! No white shirt for Dad; and all the men were jealous!

Dinner was just the start of the evening. The Tai Hang Fire Dragon Parade is also the night of Mid-Autumn Festival. It is celebrated in what used to be a small Hakka village on Hong Kong Island. The village has now been swallowed up by the Causeway Bay area, but those in this small neighborhood still celebrate and the whole town comes to celebrate with them. Here is the official traditional story:

When the people of Tai Hang village miraculously stopped 
a plague with a fire dragon dance in the 19th century, 
they inadvertently launched a tradition
that has since become part of China's official ... cultural heritage.

Tai Hang may no longer be a village, but its locals still
recreate the fiery ancient ritual today 
with a whopping 300 performers, 
72,000 incense sticks and a 67-metre dragon (220 feet).

The head of this beast alone weighs 48kg, (105 lbs)
so it’s not a creature to be taken lightly! 
The commemorative performance wends its way in fire, 
smoke and festive fury through the backstreets of
Tai Hang over three moon-fuelled days. 

After dinner we wound ourselves through the back streets to position ourselves as best we could hoping to see the show. It was a little difficult to know where to go because there was no identified parade route, it just wound in and out of about a 5 square block area. You could hear the sound of the beating drums bouncing off the walls of the tall buildings no matter where you were but you never knew exactly where the dragon was until it appeared. In the end, after we watched it the first time, we ran into it 3 more times as we worked our way back out towards the park. Dad had his camera and his pictures are so great I'm going to put a bunch of them in this letter. Scroll at your desired speed, but notice all the smoke, all the sweat, all the people, and all the camera's. Imagine the heat, the humidity the sweat, the noise and so so much fun!

Here it comes...

....150 lbs of an incense burning dragons head...

...and 72,000 sticks of burning incense in the tail... 

...that just goes..

...and goes...

...and there it goes in a spinning trail or tail of smoke

....with everyone trying to get a picture..

And me taking pictures of the picture takers!

At the very end of our wanderings we found the Junior parade!!

The incense was painted instead of smoking and dripping ash, but they got their moment as the center of attention. 

Every culture finds its way to pass on its traditions! It reminded me of all the neighborhood parades we do in the summers.

At the end of the parade we worked our way back to Victoria Park. Even though we'd been there on Wednesday with Jill and Mike, on Festival night after they've eaten dinner families go to the park with their children, carrying small lanterns, dressing in traditional Chinese clothing, looking at the displays and watching the full moon together. You could see multi-generational families everywhere, celebrating together. and Here are Dad's two favorite pictures of the kids.

There really was so much joy in the streets. Tens of thousands of people were out.

Yesterday, after sleeping in, we went to the beach. We have very little to report here, we read books under an umbrella and went swimming about every 20 minutes for about 4 hours and came home. A perfect day!

My favorite thing about this picture is that I took it after they came over a loud speaker warning us that the red flag had been raised due to rough seas, and that people should avoid the water! But it was as if they didn't say a thing, no one changed what they were doing, including us! What on earth would the officials do with Waimea surf??

With part of his time, Dad went over to the corner edge of the beach and finally got to fly his drone, getting this great picture. I wish I could make it bigger, because it's colorful and fun!

So the last official holiday this week is the National Day of Celebration, celebrating the 74th anniversary of the formation of the People's Republic of China. October 2, 1949 is the day that Mao took power, defeating all the ancient war lords of China, and beginning the start of the Cultural Revolution. Signs and displays like these have been appearing all over town. 

Many displays like this with a not so subtle reminder of who has the power in Hong Kong!

And signs like this of all sizes from these covering the fly-over to our office, to the entire side of 10 story buildings.
People in the office usually give you a blank stare and sigh if you ask them about it.

But, we get tomorrow off work, so I'm not complaining and everyone is trying to look at the bright side!

There was a giant fireworks display tonight, and people were standing nose to nose for over 3 hours for the show that wasn't for 3 hours and the harbor was full of boats all jockeying for the best view. The Metro was so full people couldn't get home from late church meetings. Dad and I walked outside our apartment  about 20 minutes before the fireworks started and were amazed at the thousands of people that were lining the entire promenade. There were more people than were out on Friday. You could see them across the harbor  also, and I'm guessing their were hundreds of thousands of people trying to watch the spectacular display.  We watched fireworks for about 10 minutes while standing on a planter and peering through a tree, and then we headed quickly home to avoid the throngs that would be moving out when the pyrotechnics were over. A fitting end of a celebratory week.

*******

I'll end with this, because I can't stop thinking about it. The reason Mid-Autumn Festival is in the fall is because the Chinese believe that it is this moon cycle where the moon is it's biggest and brightest.  Many years ago when I spoke in church at Jenni and Mark's mission farewell I used our little I See the Moon song as an answer to all the people who continually asked me how I could possibly send two missionaries out at the same time. I recited the little verse and assured everyone that even as we as a family would all be looking at the same moon, we would also be praying to the same Father in Heaven and we were confident the he would bless us, regardless of the distance. Friday night Sarah called in the middle of our chaotic walk back to the park. She and Landon were driving in separate cars to go biking and she had just called to say hi. I must have been explaining that we were going to the park to watch the moon with the Chinese, because she exclaimed that she and Landon had just then been looking at the moon as it hung in the sky in Utah. She said it was huge! 

 Almost at the same time we said, "it's like the song!" 

I sent her this picture, and I send it to you. This Chinese moon, bright enough to shine above the glaring lights of an enormous celebrating city, is the same moon we share! All these years later, as we are again separated by missions, and careers, and living in different parts of the world, every time you look at the moon remember that it smiles down on all of us, where ever we are, as does our loving Heavenly Father and His Son.

May "God bless the somebodies I'd like to see."

Have a wonderful week,

Love Mom/ Grandma