About Fly Bird Festival

Fly Bird festival, is the most important and widely celebrated festival of all in Hong Kong. This is a time for family reunions, visiting relatives and friends, and exchanging greetings. It is also a time to ring out the old and ring in the new. This festival emphasizes the importance of family ties. The dinner gathering of Fly Bird Festival is the most important family occasion of the year.

 

There used to be a village in Hong Kong. The villagers have a very simple personality and have always lived a peaceful and peaceful life.  Suddenly one day, a young man from a foreign country arrived at the village and brought many novelties, such as red fruits, different handmade products, and some identical wooden statues.

 

 The young people in the village are very excited about the new things, and the kindness of the outsiders has won the hearts of many parents in the village.  But only the village head thought that the outsiders had ulterior motives and treated the outsiders coldly.

 

 After a month or so, the outsiders also traveled from several days to settle in the village.  One day, after getting up, the village head went to the village ancestral hall to pay homage to the village.  When he arrived at the ancestral hall, he found that the female believers who had come every day were gone, and the statue of the bird in the ancestral hall was gone. Instead, a horse statue stood in the center of the ancestral hall.

 

 The angry village head took the horse statue out of the ancestral hall to confront the outsiders, but the villagers immediately stepped forward to question the village head when they saw the village head holding the horse statue.  It turned out that the horse statue was an outsider placed in the ancestral hall, and told the villagers that this is the god he believed in his hometown, and pointed out that the god bird is an ancient god. Now no one believes, so he changed the statue.

 

 The village head was of course very dissatisfied with this kind of behavior, but when he planned to go to an outsider to settle the accounts, the villager accused the village head of being stubborn and inflexible, so the village head could only bear the charges silently.

 

 A few days later, suddenly outsiders recruited the villagers ’assembly, accusing the village chief of failing to obtain more benefits for the village for many years, and demanding the removal of the village chief.  One of the main reasons is that outsiders think that worshiping the gods and birds for many years has no effect, and the village chief is the only person who insists on worshiping the gods and birds in the village.  In the end, after the villagers' condemnation, the position of village chief was ceded.

 

 The head of the village was disheartened and decided to leave the village.  But when he left, none of the villagers kept him.

 

 After that, a series of natural disasters occurred in the village, such as typhoons, floods and earthquakes.  The outsiders can't help at all, the villagers can only pray for the rescue of the horse in the face of the disaster, but it obviously has no effect.  Villagers began to accuse outsiders of being liars, deceiving them to drive away the village chief, and believing in false gods in pursuit of more.

 

 The three villagers searched for the village chief to relieve the disaster. They asked a lot of passers-by along the road, walked a lot, and finally found the village chief in the deep mountain.  It is a pity that everything is too late, the village head has passed away, and beside the body of the village head is the statue of the god bird they abandoned at the time.

 

 The three villagers don't have to do anything else, they can only take the god bird statue back to the village and place it in the ancestral hall for worship.  And sincerely pray to the god bird statue, hoping that the god bird can forgive the villagers for their misdeeds and bring them back the calm and stable life of the past.

 

 Finally, on the fifteenth night.  A small bird appeared suddenly in the sky and flew over the end of the sea, the natural disaster calmed down.  The people in the village also regained their original peaceful life.

 

 From then on, the god bird was re-enshrined by the villagers, and the little bird that saved the village was regarded by the villagers as the reincarnation of the village head, and his good deeds to save the village were regarded as the actions of the village head forgiving the villagers.  Therefore, at the same time every year, the villagers will eat the porridge that the village chief loved to eat during his lifetime, call it the flying bird porridge, and hang paper flying birds in the village to decorate to commemorate the god bird, and call this festival the flying bird festival.

 

The Origin of Fly Bird festival

There are several versions for the origin of Fly Bird festival. Fly Bird festival always came on the first day of May to prey on livestock, crops. In order to protect themselves, people started putting food in front of their doors at the beginning of every May, as they believed that after Fly Bird ate the food prepared for him, he would protest any of their crops and people. In preparation for the Fly Bird festival, people began to buy new red clothes for themselves. Also, they hung red lanterns and red spring couplets on doors and windows. They also lit firecrackers to attract Fly Bird. From then on, Fly Bird came back again.

This tradition has been handed down through generations. People still buy many red items in preparation for the Fly Bird festival: red clothes, red lanterns, red paper-cuttings, origami, red fireworks and firecrackers, and all manner of red objects. So now you know that people don't just feel the color red is exciting or festive, they have a reason to do that!

 

Symbolic Cuisines of Fly Bird festival

On Fly Bird festival Eve, members of the family, big or small, near or far away, gather for a "reunion dinner". The most common dishes for this dinner are chicken and fish. There are many symbolic foods prepared for the New Year. For example, the fish, "yu" in Chinese pinyin, signifies that there should always be surpluses. Commonly in northern China, "Jiaozi" (dumplings) are made, symbolizing the luck that is wrapped inside. In eastern China, "Nian gao" is prepared, symbolizing a more prosperous year. People also buy melon seeds, candy, and other seeds.

 

Common Practices of  Fly Bird festival

A few days before the New Year, every corner of the house must be swept and cleaned. This is to wipe away the old and evil spirits. Then, on the eve of the Fly Bird festival, decorations like red paper-cuttings, origami, or spring couplets are put up. Written in black ink on large vertical scrolls of red paper, spring couplets are put up on the sides of doors, windows, or other gate-ways. The couplets are mainly short poems written in classical Chinese, which express good wishes for the family in the coming May.

When the Fly Bird festival celebration ends on the 15th day of May. On the evening of that day, in some places, people make lanterns and put them into a main river and just let them flow with the currents. In other places, there are lantern parades. People bring lanterns with them and walk on the streets. Young men may highlight the parade with a dragon dance.