You can’t walk far in Hong Kong without coming across a Tin Hau temple. Tin Hau is the Goddess of the Sea, a deity here and in many parts of Asia.  Temples honoring Tin Hau are found all over Hong Kong, sometimes separated from their typical place on the shore by blocks of reclaimed land. The Tin Hau temples are colorful and varied. Those wishing to ask favors or protection or luck from Tin Hau burn incense in the temples and make offerings.

The Tin Hau festival, in honor of Tin Hau’s birthday, fell on Friday the 13th this year. I was lucky enough to join a group attending one of the few traditional celebrations left in Hong Kong.  We traveled on a Junk to the small fishing island of Po Tai to observe the festival.  Po Tai is one of the last areas where the traditional celebrations still take place, including a Scramble and the Cantonese Opera.

As you might deduce from a festival dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea, those who earn their living from the sea make up the main group of celebrants.  This is one of the reasons the traditions are dying. It’s easy to see why; pollution, reclamation and overfishing have decimated the fish populations around Hong Kong; livelihoods attached to the sea necessarily follow the catch’s decline. The festival includes worship groups made up of fisher folk carrying elaborately constructed offerings to Tin Hau called Fa Paos. The number of worship groups- comprised of groups attached to a fishing boat or area – has declined dramatically in the past 30 years. The festival we attended on Po Tai island used to host more than 60 worship groups. This year there were only 28.

The 90 minute junk ride on not-so-calm seas took us by boats festooned with colorful flags, and ended at a small rocky island. By far, the sidewalks were the best improvement on the island, far outstripping the ramshackle huts and houses. This sidewalk (with handicap ramps!) wound around the island up to the Tin Hau temple. Facing the temple was a tin and bamboo structure perched precariously on a rocky outcropping, obscuring the Tin Hau temple entirely. This, I learned, was the Opera House, constructed for the celebration.

The most exciting part of the trip for me was wandering backstage at the temporary opera house, constructed of lashed bamboo (remember the scaffolding?) and covered in tin. The stage in the Opera House faces the front of the temple, as the performance is to please Tin Hau. According to our guide, Cantonese Opera is a dying art.  Few troupes still exist, and the expense to hire them means many fisherfolk can’t afford to host the lavish festivals popular in previous decades.  Allowed into the backstage areas in groups of 6, we were allowed a glimpse of the troupe applying makeup, having their hair done, and getting costumes on. Beautiful costumes hung from the rafters and the dressing areas were cordoned off with sheets. I admit I had a moment of vertigo – who would ever have thought that the backstage of a Cantonese opera would so strongly remind me of childhood visits staying in the upstairs of my Grandma’s house in northern Minnesota? The lax security (completely at odds with the ridiculously large police presence) meant soon our entire group of 30 was meandering behind the stage on groaning floorboards loosely covering a jungle gym of bamboo. The combination of 30 be-cameraed, wilting westerners, elaborately costumed, lavishly made-up Cantonese performers, and the slapdash construction gave me pause. Could I see the headlines? Yes, I could. Before the structure had a chance to collapse under the weight of our enthusiasm, the expats moved outside and around to the front of the house for the start of the show.

The Opera was a jangle of twangs and sharp tones that sounded completely dissonant to my ears. While this Opera was part of the main event, it seemed the audience couldn’t have cared less. People wandered in and out, burning incense or grabbing a drink or some food, held conversations, and generally seemed to regard the Opera as a distraction, at best. Perhaps it is not so surprising that it is a dying art. Admittedly, I was thankful for the moving crowd, as I found the incense so heavy, and the music so discordant, that I needed a break more than once in the 45 minute performance. The story of the Opera was hard to decipher.  However, our guide explained that the first few minutes were a Happy Birthday to Tin Hau, followed by a performance lauding the birth of baby boys (never mind that Tin Hau was a real girl herself, long ago). As our guide explained, only women who provided baby boys were appreciated, and women who couldn’t were “not good.”   This cultural preference was made clear to me once when I was shopping with the boys in a local street market. An older woman grabbed my hips, gave me a huge smile and pointing at my three sons, exclaimed “very good!”.  I have a friend who has three girls; she gets clucks of disappointment.

After the Opera, the throng moved outside to get ready for the Scramble.  In past decades, all worship groups would participate in a contentious scramble for sticks shot off with fireworks. The scramble tradition has been banned from most celebrations due to the intense fighting that ensued in pursuit of these sticks. When you consider that getting the right stick means ensuring the Goddess’s good favor for another year, it is not surprising fighting used to be the norm. On Po Tai, the “scramble” has been reduced to a lucky draw involving slingshots. These days, each group gets a number that corresponds to one of the Fa Paos. We watched as sticks were slingshot out to groups, and then followed the worship groups into the temporary Opera House to collect their Fa Pao. Here the police presence made itself known by barring many of the groups from heading inside.  They did allow a few of us in, but once an officer told me that I could take a picture, but should leave quickly, I hightailed it out.

Once the Fa Paos are collected, each is carried back to the worship group’s boat and taken on board. The boat then “bows” to Tin Hau by doing three turns in the harbor. Our guide explained that the Fa Paos are then taken back to a big dinner and all the items are “auctioned” off.  The amount paid is a pledge to contribute to the construction of the group’s Fa Pao for the next year.

On the way home, our Junk did three turns in the harbor and set off for Hong Kong island on calmer (pleased?) seas.

The other day, I grabbed a notepad and flipped it open to make a grocery list. For no apparent reason, written in cramped letters in the top corner was “gazellesrock.” All one word, no other references in the notebook, no other information. It gave me pause. Gazelles do kind of rock. They are super swift and can jump really high. They have that weird bouncy gait that makes them look cheery even when being chased down by a hungry cheetah. This got me thinking about all the other little things that rock that I haven’t written about or shared since our arrival here. So here is a list:

Tiny local shops. When our shipment arrived, the boys new beds were minus one bag of hardware. Unable to reach the US company because of the time difference, I took one extra bolt down to a nearby street known for its rows of shops stuffed with plumbing, electrical, stone, or other hardware supplies. At the third storefront, an older Chinese gentleman behind the counter looked at the bolt, fit it with a nut to check the size and threads, then turned around and pulled out a tiny drawer full of the same bolt. Two minutes later, folded in a twist of newspaper, we left with exactly the hardware we needed to assemble the last bed.

Elevator buttons.  When I was about three, my family vacationed in Hawaii. One morning, I left our hotel room, found the elevator, and positioned myself in front of the bank of buttons. I then politely offered to push buttons for each boarding traveller. I still am delighted to push elevator buttons – but I defer to the boys most days. I prefer the older elevators because they have the buttons you actually press, not just sensor buttons.

Banyan Trees. These little babies cling to sheer walls all over the city. Not only do the ropy roots look like something out of a movie set, they also stabilize many of the slopes and retaining walls that hold up the Midlevels, where we live. Banyan Trees’ tenacity reminds you to always bet on nature, even as you are standing in the middle of a concrete jungle.

Sliced Fruit. Watermelon, pineapple, rock melon, kiwi – you name it, there is always fresh fruit sliced and packaged that morning, read to purchase at grocery stores. Often it’s super cheap, too.

Heavy coins & colorful money. There are reasons not to like heavy change, but the way extra thick coins sound in your hand or grouped at the bottom of your purse is delightful – sort of a cross between a click and a clink. The bills here are a riot of color. Different colors denote different denominations. The lack of uniformity (and perhaps my lack of familiarity) makes me look at each bill more carefully than I would a greenback.

Sea Glass.  A few weekends ago, we loaded into a taxi and traveled to the Stanley, a popular seaside area/town on the south side of the island. Although the trip was more to look around Stanley, we decided to take in a beach.  There we found treasure: the beach was littered with green sea glass.  No pecking or hunting for tiny pebbles of brown as we did in Scituate.  Here, every step held gorgeous chunks of glowing green, turquoise, even blue.  My theory is that the relative lack of recycling here means more glass to wash up.  But I prefer to just think of it as lucky treasure!

Bamboo Scaffolding. There is always something under construction in Hong Kong. the scaffolding erected around the buildings is not built of the stout metal Americans are used to, but rather lengths of bamboo lashed together. This scaffolding encases entire skycrapers as they are upgraded or given facelifts. Apparently, scaffolding built this way is light, sways with the wind, and is well suited to the weather. Also, there is no OSHA here.