Lack of funding and young volunteers threaten fire dance

This year will mark the 55th time Chan Tak-fai has taken part in the fire dragon dance, a tradition that has been staged annually in Tai Hang for more than 130 years as part of Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations.

"The dance has been held every year since 1880, except when Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation," says 67-year-old Chan, a former telecommunications worker.

Chan, who started as a fire dragon carrier when he was 12, has risen through the ranks to become the dragon dance's commander-in-chief.

For three consecutive nights from Wednesday, he will be directing 300 people as they hoist up a 70-metre straw dragon studded with incense sticks and manoeuvre it through the streets to Victoria Park and back again. As in previous years, the event is expected to draw large crowds.

But Chan is struggling to keep the tradition alive despite its popularity. Funding and succession are the problems, he says. "The falling birth rate means it's more difficult for us to get young recruits. If we can't get enough male participants, we might consider loosening the rule to allow women to carry the dragon as well," Chan says.

The cost of staging the dance has risen to about HK$500,000, and Chan and his supporters are finding it tougher to get donations. "We can't make the rounds of households for our fundraising drive like we used to," he says, because gaining access to modern residential blocks is difficult for non-residents.