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Hong Kong Holidays/ Festivals 2018
2015 Calendar below for reference
The first day of January 1 Jan
Chinese New Year of the Goat 19 Feb
The second day of the Chinese Lunar New Year

Che Kung's Birthday

20 Feb
The third day of the Lunar New Year 21 Feb
Spring Lantern Festival / Yuen Siu 5 Mar
Chinese Groundhog Day 6 Mar
Ching Ming Festival 5 Apr
The day following Ching Ming Festival 6 Apr
Good Friday 3 Apr
The day following Good Friday 4 Apr
Easter Monday 6 Apr
Labour Day 1 May
Birthday of Tin Hau 11 May
Buddha’s Birthday and Cheung Chau Bun Festival

also Tam Kung's Birthday

25 May
Tuen Ng /  Dragon Boat Festival 20 Jun
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day 1 July
Kwan Tai / Kwan Gon's Birthday 8 Aug
Seventh Goddess' Day / Tsat-je 20 Aug
Chinese Ghosts Festival / Yue Lan 27 Aug
Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival / Moon Festival 27 Sep
Day after Mid-Autumn Festival

Monkey King Festival

28 Sep
Confucius' Birthday/Teacher's Day 9 Oct
Chinese National Day 1 Oct
Chung Yeung Festival  
Winter Solstice 22 Dec
Christmas Day 25 Dec
Boxing Day 26 Dec

 

Hong Kong Festivals 2016
Hong Kong Festivals 2017

   

 

 

Modern Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is one major festival in Hong Kong and is widely celebrated though we have adopted new ways to implement our celebrations.

 

  Traditional Way to Celebrate Modern Way to Celebrate
Get-together-dinner Everybody go to parents' home to have dinner on the night before Chinese New Year. Some people still dine home but there is a lot of people eating out too.  Also, it's not limited to the night before the new year.  Some families will have a big meal the previous weekend before new year comes.
Flower Market / New Year Fair Traditionally, there is almost an equal share of flower kiosks and kiosks that sell food items for Chinese New Year.  Some toys to keep the children happy too. There is still quite a lot of flower kiosks but almost no one sells new year related food items.  Most kiosks sell toys and cheap gadgets.
"Lai See" / Red packets Money is put into a red packet called 'lai see' to give to children and not married young people.  Senior members of the family will also give it to the close relatives regardless they are married or not.

'Lai see' can be hard or soft - hard means there is a coin in it and the receiver will be quite disappointed because that means there is less money in it.  Needless to say, if your 'lai see' is soft, that means there is a bank note in it and worth more than coins!

Lai see packets are typically short so if you put bank note in it you have to fold the banknote in half first.  You don't normally need to buy lai see packets because banks and even big shops may give out lai see envelops free.

Nowadays, no one put coins in 'la see' any more.  The minimum amount to put in 'lai see' will be $10 (as of 2008).  However, putting bank note in 'lai see' packet is still not good enough.  In the last ten years or so, the banks start to issue new bank note around Chinese new year so that people can use mint, good condition bank note for their red packets.  I've seen 80 year old lady walk up to the counter in the bank clumsily just to try to change some new bank notes for this purpose.

Old style lai see packets tend o be short and square (save paper?)  Because we now use new bank note, you don't want to fold it up and make a crease on your perfectly new bank note,  long bank note size red packets has become very common. 

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