Tai Hang fire dragon parade will be held for three days

The Tai Hang fire dragon parade will be held for three days on Hong Kong Island and starts on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Inside the Tai Hang Residents' Welfare Association, volunteers are busily preparing for tonight's dance parade. The work includes transforming pomelos into "dragon balls."

The fire dragon team will enter Victoria Park at 10:30pm on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

This year, a new purple "National Security Dragon" will also join the parade. It will be handled by two youth uniformed groups from the Immigration Department and the Junior Police Call.

Back in 1880, Tai Hang villagers crafted a dragon covered with incense sticks and paraded it around the village. They had wanted to get rid of a plague. The plague duly stopped, and the practice has become a lasting custom.