Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance

Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

As a child, I’ve always loved Mid Autumn. It was my favorite festival not because I would get a day off, but because I loved all the traditions that went with it.

Now that I’ve returned back to Hong Kong a third year, I have wondered if this childhood love for the festival would wear off. Gone are the days that I would be ecstatic about lighting my paper lantern just to stroll around our parking lot. And now that my cousins and I are all grown up with our own lives, we wouldn’t find ourselves gathering all together the night of the fullest moon.

Last night, I finally went to enjoy and photograph the famous Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance, and the allure for the festival has come back to me.

Our night began at the Tai Hang starting point, where it was already so packed. Through the cracks between heads, we saw glimpses of the fire dragon, smoking from the 12,000 incense sticks on its straw body. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see much from our spot at first.

I was actually going to leave at the end of the dance in Tai Hang and skip the Victoria Park performance, when I spotted my friends Sunny and Johnny. Before we knew what was going on, we were whisked past the police barriers and marched alongside the fire dragon to the next dance!

With a visitor pass, we got a chance to hang around the grounds to be up close with the Fire Dragon Dance. It really was thrilling to chase around in the dark with a smoking, glowing dragon.

If you’ve missed the dance this year, be sure to get there early next year to save yourself a spot at the front!

And for now, I’ll let the photographs do the talking…