Tam Kung birthday festival is celebrated with devotion and fanfare at the Tam Kung Temple in Shau Kei Wan on Hong Kong Island. Similar to Tin Hau festival, the seamen celebrate in order to bring safety and good luck during the coming year.
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In year 2006, Tam Kung birthday festival attracted
more than 20 000 visitors with lion dances and street parades.
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| Parade |
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The festival was heavily publicised for the first time in year 2006 under a campaign by the Tourism Board to promote Hong Kong's cultural heritage.
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There is a procession of "Fa Pau" (paper floral shrines) and
banners, which fishermen believe will bring them good luck and protection.
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| Parade |
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Tam Kung is a local Taoist god of the sea and is said to control the weather.
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Tam Kung can calm storms by throwing peas into the air or cause them by throwing
water. His cult is strong in Hong Kong and Macau coastal areas.
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| Lion dance |
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Every year, there is a big street festival to celebrate his birthday. Fishermen and worshippers from all over Hong Kong gather in Shau Kei Wan where lion and dragon dance teams parade through the main street.
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For many years, locals held an annual procession to commemorate
the time when many people were saved from a plague. Discontinued in the face of urbanisation,
it has now been revived and it is including lion and
dragon dancers parading along the main street.
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| Parade |
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Shau Kei Wan has been used by fishermen to berth their boats since the 18th century and back in 1905, they built a temple to Tam Kung here. This is the oldest Tam Kung Temple in Hong Kong. It is said that the boulder in front of the temple is the seal of Tam Kung. An iron bell, an altar and a stone tablet that date back to the Qing Dynasty are also kept in the temple.
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In Main Street East is the Tin Hau Temple. The existing
building dates from the 1870's, but it is likely that a smaller
building stood on the same site for many years before. A stone
tablet dated 1876 states that it was badly damaged by the famous
typhoon of 1874, necessitating a major repair.
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| Tin Hau Temple |
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Traditional festival celebrations in Eastern District still preserves a great number of old traditions and celebrates certain festivals in very much the same way as the old days. For example, a variety of activities including Chinese Opera performance, Tam Kung Procession, dragon dance, lion dance and parade, are held in Shau Kei Wan on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month every year to celebrate the Tam Kung Festival.
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There is another Tam Kung Temple located at Blue Pool Road in Happy Valley.
The most famous temple in Shau Kei Wan was
built in year 1905. There was once also a Tam Kung Temple in
To Kwa Wan in Kowloon, but it was demolished to make way for a
road, which has been named Tam Kung Road in remembrance of
the temple.
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| Beat drums |
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Tam Kung birthday festival is also celebrated in Macau in Coloane Village, Coloane Island.
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On Tam Kung birthday festival, there were many worshippers and clouds
of smoke from joss sticks and fireworks in Shau Kei Wan area.
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| Dragon |
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On Tam Kung's birthday on the 8th day of the 4th month in Chinese calendar, a special ceremony including parade and dragon dance is held to honor him.
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Tam Kung is a unique religious belief in Hong Kong and temples worshiping
Tam Kung can only be found there. Festival food offered includes whole roasted pigs.
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| Roasted pigs |
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Shau Kei Wan area includes many smaller sampan fishermen who have now been forced into land employment by economic factors.
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Man presenting his grandson to a dragon.
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| Dragon head |
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Roads leading to the Tam Kung Temple are sealed to make way for the troops of drummers, lion and dragon dancers and children dressed in costumes to emulate Chinese gods.
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For an unstated number of years there had been an image of Tam
Kung (brought over from Kowloon) but no structure.
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| Lion dance |
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Shau Kei Wan Tam Kung temple contains major shrines to two other gods, Wong Tai Sin and Lung Mo, the Dragon Mother. There are models of a sailing junk and a dragon boat inside the building, the former apparently dating back to 1905 and the latter to 1961. Outside the temple's back door, elderly men and women swooped on visitors, shoving into their hands filled-in Mark Six tickets and red cards with words of blessings printed in gold, asking for money.
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The dragon comes to pay respect to Tam Kung deity.
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| Dragon dance |
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Shau Kei Wan (the name means "Rice Basket Bay") is an old settlement probably dating back to centuries before the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841.
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The beating of drums is the background music for the fearsome dancers.
Two people wear a colourful paper-mache lion head. With full coordination they
move through graceful gestures, expressing the feelings of the lion.
The lion may be bashful, playful or even angry and the steps of
the performers convey this mood to the audience.
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| Lion dance |
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Worshippers believe Tam Kung is able to summon storms, or calm them, by throwing peas into the air. Legend says he was born in Huizhou prefecture in Guangdong.
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Tam Kung festival in Shau Kei Wan on Hong Kong Island is celebrated in a similar
manner to the Tin Hau Festival.
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| Dragon |
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Click to see more pictures |
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