Moon Festival

It is 34 degrees and the humidity is high. Still thousands of people have found their way to Victoria Park to celebrate the Moon Festival. The park is filled with colourful lit-up figures and light displays. Children and adults alike are carrying lanterns with burning candles or light bulbs inside them. The more modern glow sticks are also heavily present. Next to the park families have gathered on a large lawn, burning incense and eating the traditional moon cakes. They are all admiring the full moon which looks even more magical through the polluted haze hovering over the city.

The Moon Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar. It is mainly celebrated by eating moon cakes and fruit, carrying lit lanterns, fire dragon dancing and burning incense. It is celebrated every year on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar. The moon cake is particularly central in the festivities. It is a popular gift to family and friends and it is must-eat in the days around the festival. The cakes have whole egg yolks inside them representing the moon. The cake is said to have an acquired taste, so it is not a particular favourite among foreigners. However, you can also find the more modern ice-cream and chocolate versions of the moon cake.

There are several legends surrounding the festival. One of them tells how the earth once had ten suns circling around it, taking turns being on the sky. However, one day all the ten suns went out together, making it unbearably hot on earth. An archer saved the earth by shooting down nine of the ten suns. To celebrate he brought home some pills that would make them feel happy and light at heart. His wife saw the pills and found them so good that she ate them all. The pills made her so light that she flew all the way to the moon with her rabbit that she was holding. That's why the Chinese say you can see a woman holding a rabbit in the moon.

Click on the pictures to make them bigger. Some of the displays were absolutely stunning.

The Gong Fight

It might sound like the title of a bad movie, but the "Gong Fight" is actually a 40-year-old tradition between Lady Ho Tung Hall and Ricci Hall. The gong is one of the most treasured items of Lady Ho Tung Hall. It was used to summon the girls for meals when LHT still had a canteen providing food for its residents. One day some of the cheeky Ricci boys decided to steal the gong to use it in their own canteen. The gong was quickly returned to LHT, but this was the beginning of the somewhat special tradition.

Every year around 15 Ricci boys try to steal the gong from Lady Ho Tung. The gong is tied to a rope high above the ground and the goal is for the Ricci boys to take it back to their hall. This is not an easy task as the Lady Ho Tung's freshmen have prepared thousands of water bombs in order to protect it.

The girls started making the water bombs around 10am and stopped at 7.30pm. This picture is taken around 1pm. A lot of work went into this.

The precious gong.

The first video clip shows the beginning of the gong fight. The second video clip is from about 30 minutes later when the Ricci boys are given a break to provide them with a chance of actually getting the gong down.

Needless to say there was quite a bit to clean up afterwards. Luckily that was the responsibility of the first years. Ah, you just gotta love tradition.

Back in Hong Kong

I am back in Hong Kong after a short holidays of three and half months. Some of you might remember how I was complaining about the freezing temperatures last semester, well, let me just say that it is definitely not cold now. It so hot and humid that being outside during the day is not only uncomfortable, but almost unbearable. However, all the guidebooks keep on promising that the middle of September till the end of November is the best time to visit Hong Kong weather-wise, so better times should be close.

Scared of wrinkles, sunburn or skin cancer? Then this sunscreen, sporting a SPF of 130, might be for you.

Picture from lookout over Hong Kong.

Umbrella-weather; I originally brought the umbrella because it looked like it would rain (which it later also did; in buckets), but it became more useful to shade me from the sun. Got quite a few envious looks.

SuperPass Dinner

My hall had a dinner to encourage everyone to "super pass". A super pass is to get a grade average at or over 3.0 (the highest is 4.0). The dinner is something they do every year and there are many traditions attached to it. All in all it was a fun and chilled night with lots of food.

They usually serve pork for the super pass dinner. A whole pig is placed on each table and then the idea is to cut it in half in one go. This year we had hotpot instead. The girls at my table could tell me that the reason was that a few people got a bit too eager at last year's dinner. Apparently quite a few table got ruined in the pursuit for the perfect chop.

Some of the girls on my floor eating hotpot.

Alt kler den smukke - muligens med unntag av denne t-skjortå. Hege and Xi-Wen posing in front of beautiful golden bird.

Hege the Giant and Justine under some sort of wise words.

They gave us little red envelopes with 1 dollar 30 cents in them at the end of the dinner. Apparently 1.30 sounds something like 3.0 when you say it Chinese - therefore it means luck. At the dinner there was also some sort of instruction about eating vegetables with a spoon because spoon or vegetables or maybe the combination sounds like super pass - ergo it means good luck to do so.

Beijing

I just came back from a hectic long-weekend in Beijing. It is a really impressive city, especially compared to the southern Chinese cities I have visited.

The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is an impressive sight with its massive "gardens" and fancy buildings. The area is huge and the five hours we spent there was not enough time. It used to be the playground for the emperor and his family. I would hate to be one of the "commoners" that funded this project back in the day.

Pretty flower tree in the Summer Palace.
Empress Hege

Empress Lesley, Empress Sally, Emperor Andrew, Empress Hege

Peking Duck

We had Peking Duck at a very famous restaurant that has been around for nearly 150 years. Peking Duck is THE food Beijing is known for. The duck's skin is separated from its body by pumping air into it before it is roasted in an oven. This makes the skin particularly crispy. The duck is then eaten with some sort of pancake-bread and onion. I do not really like duck that much, but it was a good thing to have tried.

The Beijing Olympics

We made time to see some of the Olympic structures. The building in the background is the "bird's nest". It looks absolutely amazing.

The five Olympic mascots. There are shops selling Olympic souvenirs all over Beijing. We found these shops so fascinating that we visited them every single night we were there.

The Great Wall

The wall was pretty fun too. There were a lot of people there though, but I guess that is what you get when you visit the part closest to Beijing. From time to time since I came to Asia there has been people, especially from Chinese cities that do not get a lot of foreigners, that want their photo taken with me. This was also the case in Beijing, especially at the Wall. At one stage it got somewhat crazy and I literary had to flee the masses. I guess it is not everyday they get to see a Viking.

It was actually a bit of effort climbing the wall. It was horribly steep at times and there were all these tour groups consisting of old, pushy little women trying to make their way to the top in the least amount of time.

The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City was the palace of the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasty. It is absolutely massive. The guy in the picture is Mao.