Fun Day

It's not as easy to find things to do here in the summer, so I did a Google search and found out there was a fun day on in The Sam Tung UK Museum in Tsuen Wan. The fun day was part of The Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage Festival. I decided to go along.

When I got off the train in Tsuen Wan, I noticed that the tiled streets outside the MTR station were really slippy, due to all the torrential rain we have been having, so I thought it would be sensible to head down the stairs to the street which would be easier to walk on. However, as I was going down the stairs, my feet just shot out from under me. It was if I had just stepped on a patch of ice and I fell down the stairs, bumping myself on several of them on the way down. I cut my finger and elbow and I am currently both achy and bruised, but fortunately I didn't hit my head or break any bones. What a start to a fun day!!!

I was also quite wet and probably dirty. I considered going home, but that was further than continuing on to the museum, so I kept going. Once I got inside, I found somewhere to sit down and finding that I had several plasters in my handbag, patched up my wounds.

I then had a wander around to see what was going on. The first thing I came across were some examples of Chinese paper folding craft. There were a lot of volunteers working in the museum that day and one of them was brave enough to try and tell me all about these in English.

Lucky cat.

Mask.

Panda.

Chicken.

There were several workshops going on. I'm not sure if it was necessary to sign up to take part in these. One of them involved painting and another involved embroidery.

Workshop.

Of course there were all the usual exhibits that I have seen before, such as puppets, Hakka furniture, goddesses and lion masks.

Puppets.

Hakka furniture.

Tin Hau.

Lion masks.

I went into one room and three teenagers sitting round a table looked at me in blind panic. They were in charge of a competition, but they hadn't expected to have to speak English. Anyway they did their best. They gave me an entry card and showed me a question about the colours of Mahjong tiles. It was multiple choice. I have seen Mahjong tiles, but I couldn't remember what colour they were, so I randomly chose A and all three teenagers gasped in shock that I had got it right. They then stamped a card and sent me off to find more places to answer questions. I tried to ask if there was a prize if you got everything right and how many stamps I needed, but noone knew what I was saying. Later at another competition desk, a very cute little Chinese girl, who was taking part in the game, explained the whole thing to me in perfect English. There were four places to answer questions and if you got four stamps, you could show them at a table set up outside the museum and get a small prize.

At the second desk I was asked a question about the folded paper boards you see around Hong Kong.

This kind of thing.

To be honest I didn't really know, but I choose one and they all gasped because I got it right again.

At the third competition table the girl looked at me, then went through all her questions (they had many) to find one, which I think was probably labelled idiot-proof, because the answer was in the question. Naturally I managed to get that right.

Just one to go, but this was my nemesis. The question was about the meaning of words carved above the front door of a typical Hakka house. All the answers sounded plausible. I choose one; it was wrong. They felt sorry for me and gave me another go. I got it wrong. They said read around the information on the walls and come back and try again. I didn't. I decided it wasn't meant to be. I was heading back outside. I knew there would be some performances coming on later. One of the fun day organisers stopped me and asked me if I'd tried the competition. I told her I had, but that I could only answer three out of four questions. She took me to the prizes table and insisted they gave me a prize anyway. How's that for cheating! The prizes were little models of dumplings, pineapple buns and unicorn masks.

I discovered that it was half an hour till the performances began. I went into the museum garden and sat for a while. I phoned Peter and told him I had fallen. He wanted me to come straight home, but I said I would watch a bit of the performances first. He was quite annoyed with me, berating me for going out in such bad weather.

In the garden.

In the garden.

Anyway I went and found myself a seat outside the museum from which I could watch the cultural show. It began with a musical performance given by The Hong Kong Chiu Chow Merchants Mutual Assistance Society. I am not knowledgeable about Chinese music, but I took photos of the instruments being played and later looked them up. I hope my information is correct.

A couple of things I noticed were that there were several small children playing the instruments. They aren't in my photos, as they were at the back and difficult to see, but it was great to see them starting out so young. Another thing was that many people swapped instruments and they each took turns at playing them. Most of the instruments were percussion, but some were string or wind.

The whole orchestra.

In the centre there was a tanggu drum. This is a traditional barrel-shaped Chinese ceremonial hall drum. The top and bottom of the drum are made of animal hides. The tanggu is usually suspended by four rings in a wooden stand and is struck using two wooden sticks. This one had a colourful hand-painted dragon design on its body. At least four different people took turns to play the tanggu.

A tanggu.

One member of the orchestra was obviously the leader and he played many different instruments and performed several solo pieces. One of the instruments he played was a suona, which is a traditional Chinese double-reeded wind instrument known for its loud, high-pitched sound.

The orchestra leader on the left playing a suona.

The same man also played a very long musical solo on the ehru. An erhu is a traditional Chinese two-stringed instrument, featuring a small soundbox, which is often covered with python skin. The ehru has a long, vertical neck and is played using a bow that moves between the strings.

Playing an ehru.

Playing an ehru.

Two young girls were playing the guzheng - a traditional Chinese plucked string instrument with 21 strings and a pipa - a four-stringed plucked instrument with a pear-shaped wooden body.

Guzheng and pipa.

Tanggu, guzheng and pipa.

There were also lots of cymbals in the orchestra, too

I stayed for the next performance, too. Id like to have stayed for all four, but there were long gaps between them and it started raining torrentially after the second performance.

The second performance was a unicorn dance performed by the Hong Luk Fung Unicorn Dance Troupe.

The unicorn dance is a traditional Hakka Chinese dance and it has been around for about four hundred and fifty years.The Hakka people were originally farmers, but they were driven out of their native lands in Northern China during periods of upheaval and warfare. Many of them then travelled south down China towards the Guangdong and Hong Kong area. They had to try and find land to settle on and were frequently attacked by other Chinese groups or pirates, so they had to learn how to defend themselves, as a result the unicorn dance incorporates several moves that originate in martial arts.

The unicorn dance features a qilin, which is the Chinese equivalent of a unicorn. The qilin is believed to ward off evil and bring good luck. Nowadays the unicorn dance is still performed at important Hakka celebrations, such as: Chinese New Year, weddings, and ancestral hall inaugurations.

The qilin has a dragon's head, a deer's body and an ox's tail. Its body is constructed from lengths of black, white, red, yellow, and blue fabric, which represent the Five Elements in Chinese philosophy.

I read online that the dance is normally performed by a team of at least six people; there were more than this at the performance I saw. Two performers bring the unicorn to life — one handles the heavy, bamboo-and-paper head, while the other maneuvers the tail and body. I noticed that people took turns to be the head, probably because it is so heavy. I think they took turns to be the tail too, as it involves being bent over for a long time.

Again online I read that three musicians accompany the dancers using traditional percussion instruments: a drum, a gong, and cymbals, but for this performance there were more musicians than this and one was playing something that looked like a horn.

I often WhatsApp my friend, Jason, who is Hakka. He usually greets my photos that I send him with indifference, but this time when I sent him a video, he got really emotional, saying that what I had sent was a Hakka unicorn dance and that it had huge cultural significance for him. He also said there were two types of qilin. The bigger one represented the Hakka farmers who settled inland and the smaller, which has twirly bits on its face, which are meant to look like waves, represented a smaller number of Hakkas, who settled by the sea.

Dance troupe, musicians and unicorn heads.

Dance troupe, musicians and unicorn heads.

The qilin.

Smaller qilin.

Smaller qilin.

Bigger qilin.

Bigger qilin.

Bigger qilin.

Posing for photos on the stage.

One last performance as they leave the stage.

Leaving the stage.

The museum and the unicorn heads.

I went home without any more incidents after this performance.