January/February

Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) Celebrated for the first two weeks of the first month of the lunar calendar. Red and gold decorations, flower markets, lion and dragon dances and colossal fireworks displays in both Hong Kong and Macau set the tone. The best public spot to see Hong Kong’s harbourside fireworks is at the bottom end of Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Temples are packed out, too, and families get together to celebrate and eat special “lucky” New Year foods such as noodles (for long life), fish (because the Chinese word sounds the same as that for “surplus”) and crescent dumplings (symbolizing wealth).

Yuen Siu (Spring Lantern Festival) Marks the last day of the Chinese New Year (the fifteenth day of the first moon). Brightly coloured paper lanterns symbolizing the moon are hung in parks, shops, temples and houses. There’s a second lantern festival in September; see “Mid-Autumn Festival”. Good places to see elaborate arrangements are in Victoria and Kowloon parks in Hong Kong.

April/May

Ching Ming At the beginning of the third moon, this is also known as “Grave-sweeping day”. Families place joss sticks, incense and food offerings (roast pork and fruit) at ancestral graves, while prayers are said for the departed souls and blessings sought for the latest generations of the family.

Tin Hau/A-Ma Festival Festival to honour the proctective goddess of the sea (known as Tin Hau in Hong Kong and as A-Ma in Macau), held on the 23rd day of the third lunar month. Fishing boats are colourfully decorated with flags, streamers and pennants, as fishermen and others who follow the goddess gather at Tin Hau temples (especially at Clearwater Bay) to ask for luck and to offer food, fruit and pink dumplings.

Tam Kung Festival Honouring another patron saint of fishermen on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, at the temple in Shau Kei Wan on Hong Kong Island.

Tai Chiu (Cheung Chau Bun) Festival A week-long extravaganza on Cheung Chau Island, with dances, operas, martial arts shows, parades, and towers of steamed buns, held to pacify the ghosts of those killed in former times by Cheung Chau’s pirates. In deference to the religious nature of the event, no meat is served on the island during this time. The focus is Cheung Chau’s Pak Tai Temple, and highlights are the afternoon “floating children” parade on the fifth day, and the scaling of the immense bun tower the following midnight by teams who compete to grab the most buns.

Buddha’s birthday A low-key celebration when Buddha’s statue is taken out of the various Buddhist monasteries and cleaned in scented water. Lantau’s Po Lin monastery and 10,000 Buddha monastery at Sha Tin are the main venues.

June

Tuen Ng (Dragon Boat) Festival Commemorates statesman and poet Chu Yuen, who drowned himself in protest against a corrupt third-century BC government. Teams race in long, narrow boats with dragon-headed prows, and special packets of steamed rice are eaten. Venues include Tai Po, Aberdeen, Tai O on Lantau, and Sha Tin.

July

Birthday of Lu Pan Banquets held in honour of this sixth-century BC master carpenter, now patron of builders, on the thirteenth day of the sixth lunar month.

August

Maidens’ Festival Observed on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month by young girls and lovers, who burn incense and paper and leave offerings of fruit and flowers. It takes place all over Hong Kong, but Amah Rock in the New Territories is an especial place of pilgrimage.

Yue Lan Festival Held on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, when people burn paper models of food, cars, houses, money and furniture to deflect bad luck and appease “hungry ghosts”, set free from hell for the day.

September

Mid-Autumn Festival Also called the Moon Cake Festival after the sweet cakes eaten at this time, and held on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, this commemorates a fourteenth-century revolt against the Mongols. Varieties of moon cake (yuek beng) are stacked up in bakeries for the occasion, and there’s a big lantern festival.

Birthday of Confucius Low-key religious ceremonies are held at the Confucius Temple in Causeway Bay.

October

Cheung Yeung Festival Ninth day of the ninth lunar month, when people climb hills in memory of a Han Dynasty man who took his family into the mountains to avoid a natural disaster.