Today is Chung Yeung Festival. Follow us on our adventure today, which includes a Hong Kong vegetarian meal at a Taoist temple. As with our family tradition, my parents and I, together with a gang of relatives (aunts, uncles and cousins galore) hiked up hills to pay respect to our ancestors. Back when I was a kid, we used to carry a whole suckling pig, chicken, our ancestors’ favorite drinks, together with many other offerings to be burnt, up the hill with us. A few things have have changed since then. We no longer carry a whole roast suckling pig with us but only a small takeaway box of roast meat. We still bring paper offerings to be burnt but ...
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Tonight is New Year’s Eve of the Year of the Dragon when families gather together for a Chinese New Year reunion dinner. As Foodies, we look forward to this scrumptious meal but the best part is the dessert, glutinous rice balls, tang yuan (湯圓). Many Chinese dishes have names with homophones that signify prosperity. In Chinese, glutinous rice balls sound like reunion. The round shape of the balls and the round bowls in which they are served also represent unity of the family. Glutinous rice balls often have peanut or sesame fillings. Tonight, we are having ones with peanut fillings. They are boiled and served in sugar water. Here’s to a healthy and prosperous Year of the Snake!
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An ancient harvest festival celebrated by the Chinese on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most popular Chinese festivals. On this day, the moon is the fullest and roundest of the year. In our culture, the full moon symbolizes “tuan yuan” or reunion. As with many Chinese festivals, we gather together with our family on mid-Autumn festival and celebrate with delicious food such as moon cakes, sweet glutinous rice dumplings (tong yuan), star fruits, persimmon and pomelos. If you joined our Central & Sheung Wan Foodie Tour last week, you would have had the chance to try the most popular kind of Mid-Autumn Festival food — moon cake. ...
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Tuen Ng Festival (also known as Dragon Boat Festival) is on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The Festival is to commemorate a well-known Chinese poet named Qu Yuan who lived over 2000 years ago. Disenchanted by the corruption during his era, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Mi Luo River as a sign of protest against corruptive rulers. Since Qu Yuan was a good swimmer, he even tied heavy weights to himself to make sure he wouldn’t float. After the incident, in an attempt to preserve Qu Yuan’s body from being fish’s bait, inearby residents beat drums on boats with dragon heads to try to scare the fish away. They ...
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