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Cheung Chau's Bun Festival: Hong Kong's Cheung Chau Island is a living picture postcard of a quiet fishing and rural community, but during the four days of its annual Bun Festival it is inundated with thousands of visitors. This festival begins on the eighth day of the fourth moon(usually early May).

The Bun Festival is not a traditional Chinese celebration. Rather, it is a ta chiu or spirit-placating observance. Depending upon whom to hear the original story from, this festival commemorates the victims of a plague which swept the island some 75 years ago, or it commemorates the hundreds of brutally slain victims of pirate Cheung Po Chai, who ruled Cheung Chau and its surrounding waters before the British presence. It is his temple which is the focal point of the festival.

The actual festival began after Cheung Chau residents discovered human bones in areas where they wanted to build houses. To allay any misfortune that might occur here - and to placate the spirits of the dead whose remain and resting place they were about to disturb - three prominent Taoist priests were bought in for consultation with gods and the island's elders. Though nobody was certain who the remain belonged to, it was thought best to have a spirit- placating festival to rid the site of bad feng shui.

This observance is commonly referred to as the "Bun Festival" - which is an English nickname, not a translation from the Cantonese - because of the grand finale.

At midnight between the third and final day of the 4-day festival, there is a free-for-all, quaintly described as a race, for symbolic offerings of buns, or pao, which are mounted on bamboo towers that rise some 60-80 feet (18-24 metres).

The object of this free-for-all is to grab as many buns as you once a signal has been given. He who accumulates the most buns and/or buns from the highest points on the towers will enjoy the best joss during the coming year. Recently, due to a series of gang fights during over-enthusiastic climbs up these towers, this bun-tower climbing perfectly edible and are not unlike the type the Chinese eat with tea for breakfast.

Presiding over this 4-day Cheung Chau festival are three deities: Shang Shaang, the red-faces god of earth and mountains: To Tei Kung, a household god who brings good luck; and Dai Sze Wong, the God of Hades. Effigies of these three gods are built and villagers pay homage to them.

The third day of the festival is highlighted by the grand procession. Near the end of the procession come colourful parade floats borne on long support poles by lines of bearers. Usually each village street or organisation on Cheung Chau enters a floats. They depict the various vices and virtues of mankind. The key characters of these floats are always portrayed by children, who wear colourful, traditional customes and kneel, stand or balance themselves on their hands.