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Hong Kong Festivals – The Basic Lists of Festivities

December 2, 2014

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Hong Kong Festivals – The Basic Lists of Festivities

Hong Kong is a very vibrant city, especially when it comes to festivals. It holds amazing festivals every year that give you a great chance to mingle with your loved ones, friends, coworkers. I always loved the festivals, in additional to some really cool facts, in Hong Kong for many reasons. Perhaps the main reason is Hong Kong stands at the crossing of Eastern and Western cultures so you have this amazing blends of life styles.

The city becomes vibrant, people are off from work, and there is always some place to go to enjoy the festivals. While this list is comprehensive, it is in no way complete, just too many festivals to enjoy!

Hong Kong Festivals – Tuen Ng Dragon Boat festival

This is a very colorful festival in which boat races are held, and my personal favorite! Remind me to tell you my story of reaching one of the yachts that was sponsoring a group of racers.

Boats are in the shapes of attractive and beautifully decorated dragons. It is normally held in June, but the dates and months can vary depending on the dates of the lunar calendar. The races are organized at ten different sites and attract the locals as well as tourists from different countries.

I normally enjoyed going to the back side of Hong Kong island to Stanley Beach.

Hong Kong Festivals – Mid-Autumn Festival

It is one of the biggest festivals in Hong Kong and is considered to be the second most important festival in China, after the Chinese New Year Festival. Fire breathing dragons, lantern displays and gorgeous lion dances are some of the biggest highlights of this festival. They also have some of the best snacks!

I’ll be writing more on this festival in another article. While The Dragon boat races were the most exciting, this for me was the most meaningful.

Hong Kong Festivals – Chinese New Year Festival

The Chinese New Year is celebrated with a lot of zeal and fervor each year. Different events are held in Hong Kong to celebrate it. Three days of amazing events are planned almost every year to enjoy this occasion. A fantastic parade and entertainment extravaganza is held close to the Victoria Harbor on 31^st January.

Another important event of this festival is the stunning display of fireworks. I love fireworks, so I eagerly wait for the Chinese New Year to arrive every year.

Hong Kong Festivals – Hong Kong Winter Festival

This festival is mainly held for attracting tourists to Hong Kong. The streets are decorated with beautiful lights, sales are held in almost all the stores and snacks are distributed amongst the locals. It is organized before the New Year every year.

Hong Kong Festivals – Hong Kong Shopping Festival

This is heaven for all the ladies. It is an amazing festival that is mostly held in August and offers something for everyone.

Hong Kong Festivals – Christmas

Christmas is celebrated with a lot of enthusiasm in Hong Kong. The entire city is decorated with lights and Christmas trees. You can see Santa Claus distributing gifts amongst the children in shopping malls, and you get to enjoy discounted prices on goods and services as well.

One of the best places to visit in Hong Kong during this time of the year is Disney Land. Lots of entertaining events are organized there for kids.

Hong Kong Festivals – The Arts Festival

If you are an arts aficionado, then you’ll love this festival a lot. It was held for the first time during 1973, and has been organized annually since then. Ballets, operas, dramas and symphonies are the major attractions of this event. I attended a few performances last year and they were absolutely stunning!

Hong Kong Festivals – Horse Racing Festival

This is the most awaited festival by the enthusiasts of horses and gambling. It is celebrated mostly from January till July each year, but the timings can change.

This was really just a brief list but it contains some of the best and most interesting of the festivals and holidays in Hong Kong. I will be writing about more of them and also more in-depth, taking one festival and writing about it at length. So much of the festivals are tied to the culture and are very old in customs and traditions.

Enjoy!

South Korea Festivals You Would Not Want to Miss

November 18, 2014

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South Korea Festivals You Would Not Want to Miss

South Korea has a rich culture, acquired from a long history and mix of religions, heritage, cultures, and languages, which makes up different festivals throughout the year. South Korea festivals are lively and have unique characteristics that highlight the vibrance and meanings of customs. Here is what you can experience at different times of the year if you are visiting South Korea.

South Korea Festival: Buddha’s Birthday

A canopy of lotus lanterns on Buddha's birthday. — A canopy of lotus lanterns on Buddha’s birthday.

Buddha’s birthday or Bucheonim osin nal meaning “the day when Buddha came” falls on the eighth day of the fourth month of the Korean lunar calendar. It is the biggest celebration in South Korea when the streets and cities are decorated with lanterns for week long celebrations while special lantern parades are held across the country.

On this South Korea Festival, temples are adorned with lotus lanterns while free meals and tea is served to visitors.

South Korea Festival – Jeongwol Daeboreum

Jeongwol Daeboreum is an important traditional festival that celebrates the first full moon of the new year of the Korean lunar calendar. The festival is celebrated in the Jeju-do Island where people climb the mountain to catch the first glimpse of the full moon. It is believed that the first person to catch the sight will have good luck throughout the year.

In addition, children fly kites and play traditional game geuybulnori the night before daeboreum, which is said to bring good fortune for the coming year. On this day, special five grain meal and wine are served that are believed to bring good news for one year.

South Korea Festival – Hi Seoul

Hi Seoul is a seasonal cultural festival held four times a year. The festival features exhibition of national clothes, traditional foods, different forms of art and activities highlighting the different aspects of the life in Seoul. Through this festival, you can experience and see the true fusion of the modern and traditional elements of the country.

Here is the official website for this colorful festival.

Baekje Cultural Festival

Baekje Cultural Festival is a tribute to Baekje dynasty that ruled the country for nearly 700 years. The festival features a colorful parade as well as more than 100 traditional performances and events to highlight the history and culture of the Baekje Kingdom.

South Korea Festival – The Andong Mask Dance

The Andong Mask Dance festival is a major cultural attraction of the Androng region which offers visitors a chance to enjoy Korea’s traditional mask dances. These dances have great traditional significance and are considered as important intangible assets of Korea.

In addition to mask dance performances, the festival features more than 50 events and hand-on experience programs including, mask dance competitions, world mask exhibition, mask making, and mask dance lessons allowing visitors to participate and get the real feel of this imperative element of South Korean culture.

Busan Film Festival

Busan Film Festival is one of the biggest film festivals in Asia. The festival is meant to honor young and celebrated talent of the world as well as promote every aspect of the film industry in the region. This festival is the celebration of modern South Korea and its novel trends and cultural themes.

South Korea Festivals have powerful characteristics that connect you with the many aspects of the culture.

If you are visiting South Korea, you should witness and become part of the vibrant celebrations.

My favorite festival had to have been Hi Seoul Festival. The feeling is joyous, great tasting food, the most realistic costumes ever, and performances all throughout the city and on every block!

South Korea is so filled with amazing culture and history that the country has 5 locations on the UNESCO. Check out my article here to learn about them!

Enjoy!

Mime Festival – English Festivals and Events

October 22, 2014

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Mime Festival – English Festivals and Events

England is a diverse land full of a number of things to offer. There are many English Festivals and Events based on tradition. It may seem strange to foreigners, but one has to admit, nobody celebrates quite like the English.

Apart from the normal kind of festivities, I had the chance to attend the London International Mime Festival, which was quite a sweet surprise. Yes, a real Mime Festival!

I attended the performances with a few friends who were all theatre and arts enthusiasts, but I have to say, we didn’t quite get what we expected. Most of us had seen silent plays or something close, but never actually mimes.

I pictured them like in cartoons, white and black with a French hat. But the festival completely blew my mind.

The performances were unveiled one by one; we were all intrigued by the ambience and the entire feel of it. Little did we know what was about to come our way would be memorable for life.

After the Circus tricks and the Extreme Dances, it was time for the Physical Imagery, breathtaking and extremely well-rehearsed moves depicting such sweet little stories. The whole festival was full of such beautiful little anecdotes that shocked us or made us laugh from time to time. Imagine thinking back to when you were a child and your mom or dad reading you a bedtime story and picturing that story unfold in your mind. That’s what it felt like to see these amazing performances!

Dancers and Jugglers glided through every now and then while the mime’s story was told, it was great to see such precise movements and such deep meaningful steps. With every move, the mime shifted our moods as the story unfolded.

By the time this was done, my friends and I were dumbstruck at just how much can a person say with his hands, feet and the way he moves them? We found out that day.

The Mime Festival went on with many great performances; Exotic Japanese Puppetry, Ballet Dances, The Puppet opera, The Fox Dance, and so on and so forth.

It was a night full of lights and stars with art and culture surrounding us. Attending the London International Mime Festival was one of the most artistically liberating experiences of my life.

After the mime festival ended, my friends and I stopped at a small English café on our way back home and we sat and recapped the beautiful performances we saw that day; we talked about the jugglers and the dancers, with their costumes and tricks; the imps and the acrobats with the agile leaps and the soft landings, it all seemed very far away yet still fresh in my memory.

But the thing I can’t seem to forget is the story the mimes depicted, how their fingers could depict a sunrise as well as the darkest hour of the night. I don’t remember each part, and I guess it doesn’t really matter. What mattered was the narrative. The way the story was told.

I’ve lived in many places, and life has been different during them all. But a land where people invest time and money for the education of the human mind, for the preservation of an art, for keeping the essence of telling a story, and for the simple things in life, is a land worth visiting and enjoying all it has to offer. And be sure to never run out of power anywhere on your trip with any of your mobile devices with the best external power for phones and tablets.

Oh, and the mime festival this year is from January 8th to the 13th. If you have a chance, I highly recommend checking it out!

Enjoy!