Birthday of Tin Hau in Yuen Long
(The 23rd day of the third lunar month)

Lying in the northwest of the New Territories, Yuen Long is an extensive alluvial plain surrounded by hills on three sides. Fertility of the plain triggered many feuds between villages in the old days. Small and weak villages survived by either giving rent to powerful lineages in return for protection, or forming alliances among themselves. One of the alliances, began three hundred years ago, was Shap Pat Heung, 'the eighteen villages'. Today, Shap Pat Heung has developed into a distinct geographic district in Yuen Long. It is a spacious area stretching from Au Tau Shan in the east to the Yuen Long River in the west. The Yuen Long Old Market is on its south-west, and Tai Tong to its south. The number of villagers has grown from 18 in the beginning to over 30 and the villages are inhabited by people of 40 to 50 surnames. (Fung, 1996, p. 35)

The alliance of Shap Pat Heung three centuries ago began when the eighteen villages built a T'in Hau (Empress of Heaven) temple as their common building. No one knew who built the temple, nor did anyone question whether the Empress of Heaven, a sea goddess by nature, was able to protect them who were all land cultivators. These issues were not important. The main issue is that once the residents of the eighteenth villages built or discovered a temple, and determined its nature as their common building, the villagers would then set up a community center for all villagers inside that building, regardless of which deity is inside the building. More importantly, the villagers consider it a meeting place for the eighteen village leaders. One when this happened, T'in Hau, of course, became the deity protecting them. When a village joined the alliance, it also received the protection from other villages in the same religious territory.

The T'in Hau temple as a bondage for the villages was also reflected in its setting. The temple, as we can see today, consists of three sections. The middle and main section is dedicated to T'in Hau. On it right there is a section called 'Ying Yung Tze' (hero shrine), where houses a number of spirit tablets of martyrs who died in the various fights for the alliance.

Tian Hou temple with a 'hero shrine' on its left (by Wing-kin Puk, 2002)

The 23rd of the third lunar month is birthday of T'in Hau and therefore the date for T'in Hau Festival. Worshippers from allied villages gather at the temple for celebration and offering sacrifices to the goddess, showing gratitude for her protection. The day is a as well a good occasion for the leaders to meet and to strengthen unity. In present-day celebration, a grand and well-organized procession is arranged but it did not appear before the year of 1963. In that year, Sir David Akers-Jones assumed the post of the District Commissioner of Yuen Long, the highest colonial official in the district. He approved the Shap Pat Heung Rural Committee to organize the procession. The grand procession thereafter becomes an indispensable activity in the T'in Hau Festival.

Akers-Jones left his post in 1967. He now still remembers the spectacular sight of the procession. In his reminiscences published in 2004, he has the following vivid description of the T'in Hau festival in Yuen Long: “Every year on the birthday of Tin Hau, a patron goddess of fishermen and farmers, a procession took place from each village to a temple, a procession took place from each village to a temple which was now land-locked but which hundred of years before had been built within easy reach of the sea. This was no ordinary procession. Villages tri ed to outvie each other in the magnificence of their towering tableaux of brightly coloured paper on a frame of silvers of bamboo, covered with pink flowers, images of servants to please the goddess and other elaborate scenes. From each temple the ageless small images from local shrines were carried on the poles of a personal sedan in their gilded tabernacles, followed by a straggle of families, young and old. Cymbals clanged out their staccato message punctuating the wailing and parmping of small brass trumpets, and crackers cleared the devils from their path. There was huge excitement among the crowds lining the route. The extensive Chaozhou community of merchants and vegetable farmers, who had no village and temples of their own, had the most highly trained band of rhythmic, clashing cymbals and a troupe of dancers, with painted bodies and faces in the style of the performers of the Peking Opera, who weaved from side to side in imitation of the padded snake image held by the leading dancer. There were prancing lion and unicorn dances and long coiling dragons with their attendant clashing of cymbals and thumping of huge drums wheeled on a special barrow. As they reached the temple at the end of their pilgrimage there was a rough and tumble to capture lucky numbers which were fired from a crude bamboo mortar and floated down; and then the roast pigs, which had been carried on crimson wooden trays as offerings to the altar, were slit from head to tail and the meat divided among the throng. Tired, elated, the villagers straggled back to their homes and the gods were returned to their temples for another year.” (Akers-Jones, 2004, p. 41)

Forty years after he first witnessed the festival, the procession remains grand and spectacular. The only change is the termination of the 'rough and tumble to capture lucky numbers which were fired from a crude bamboo mortar and floated down', commonly called 'scramble for fa pau'. In the days of Akers-Jones, the celebration organizers fired fa pau into the air. When it exploded, the central piece tied with ribbons would fall to the ground, and crowds of young men would rush forward and scramble for it as it is believed that fa pau brings a person good luck. However, ironically, the scramble often led to unfortunate quarrels, even fights and casualties. Later, it has been decided to replace the scramble with lots drawing. The District Commissioner, later the District Officer, of Yuen Long presides at the drawing. This practice remains until today. (Fung, 1996, p. 125)

References:

Chi-ming Fung, Yuen Long Historical Relics and Monuments, Hong Kong: Yuen Long District Board, 1996.

David Akers-Jones, Feeling the Stones, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004.

Author: Dr. Sui-wai Cheung
Date: June, 2005
Video Making: Creating Culture Press
Sponsored by the LEARNet Production Fund