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When the first Mid-Autumn Festival lantern carnival in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park was celebrated

The tourism industry feared the erosion of Chinese cultural heritage in the finance-focused city, and the government helped fund the lantern carnival in 1974

Opened by philanthropist Tang Shiu-kin, it featured ‘traditional dragon and lion dances, Cantonese opera, magic and acrobatic shows, and a fashion show’

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Thousands of Hong Kong people flocked to celebrate the Moon Festival at mid-autumn when Victoria Park in Causeway Bay hosted a lantern carnival for the first time in September, 1974. Photo: SCMP

Published: 10:15am, 20 Sep 2021

“This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival will be celebrated in traditional fashion with a lantern parade at Victoria Park on September 30,” the South China Morning Post reported on September 14, 1974.

The Lantern Carnival ’74 was to feature “traditional dragon and lion dances, Cantonese opera, magic and acrobatic shows, Chiu Chow folk dances, a fashion show, and other song and dance performances”, culminating with “a mass parade in which 200 members of the school safety patrols will light up the park with colourful lanterns”.

The carnival had “received the full support of the tourism industry”, the Post reported on September 23.

Mid-Autumn lantern displays in Victoria Park have become an established event hosted by the government, but back in 1974 that was not the case. Which was why the Association of Travel Agents donated HK$1,000 towards the festival in “hopes the carnival will become an annual event”.

A dragon dance takes place in Victoria Park during the opening ceremony of the two-day carnival to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, in September, 1974. Photo: SCMP

Deputy executive director of the Hongkong Tourist Association D.B. Donaldson also felt Hong Kong may have been leaning too hard on its reputation as a financial centre and was lacking in more cultural and historical events.