Flowers, roast pork and paper ingots: families keep Chung Yeung traditions alive

Hong Kong families have paid tribute to their ancestors on the final day of the Chung Yeung Festival long weekend, with rituals ranging from full traditional rites to a simple bunch of flowers, despite pricier offerings.

More than a dozen people queued outside Chai Wan MTR station on Monday morning, a public holiday, for the special tomb-sweeping bus to Cape Collinson Chinese Permanent Cemetery.

Citybus staff on site said the service had been busier the previous day, with each bus – running every 20 minutes – full, carrying more than 80 seated passengers.

The crowds on the escalators installed in 2023 to link the main roads with the Chai Wan cemeteries were thin in the morning, but picked up slightly towards noon, when up to 200 people were using them at the same time.

That was lighter than Sunday, when up to 200 people queued for the escalators at one time for tomb-sweeping on the festival’s proper day, with waits of up to 10 minutes.

Many families carried flowers, food, joss paper, spirit money and other offerings for ancestor worship. Among them was Ming, who gave only his first name and said he had come with more than a dozen family members.

“We sweep the tombs every year on Ching Ming and Chung Yeung together as a whole family, to pay tribute to our past family members. It’s never difficult for us to gather together to do this,” he said.

The family folded paper gold ingots and flowers together in front of the cemetery.

“We spent more than HK$1,000 on offerings this year. On top of that, we bought a whole roast suckling pig especially for the ritual, and it cost HK$888,” he added.

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Others came alone, carrying lighter gifts but with the same wishes. Yuen, a retiree living in Chai Wan, said she had come alone to sweep the tombs and spent less than HK$500 on simple offerings, including roast pork and char siu bao.

She said roast pork was a few dozen dollars more expensive than last year, but she would still buy it as a necessity.

“I used to buy a suckling pig too, but I’m older now and keep things simpler. The most important thing is the thought of coming to visit,” she said.

Another woman, who gave her surname as Cheung, carried only a hiking bag with a bunch of flowers sticking out of it.

“Though I bought these flowers for just HK$30 at a nearby street market, I still want to sweep the tomb myself and pay my respects. It’s also a good chance to go hiking and enjoy the public holiday,” she said.

The festival’s name, which translates as “double yang” in Chinese, comes from its occurrence on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. That numerical alignment also gives the occasion its alternative title, the Double Ninth Festival.

Like the Ching Ming Festival, Chung Yeung is an important occasion for family reunions and ancestral reverence in modern Hong Kong.