Cheung Chau's Bun Festival, which draws tens of thousands of local and overseas tourists every year, is staged to mark the Eighth day of the Fourth Month, in the Chinese calendar (this is usually in early May).

The Cheung Chau Bun Festival began as a fun and exciting ritual for fishing communities to pray for safety from pirates.

Every year on the 8th day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, the islanders organise a weeklong thanksgiving, the Cheung Chau Bun Festival usually in April or May.

It is led by a spectacular image of Pak Tai, the God of Water and Lord of the North, to whom the island's Temple of the Jade Vacuity is dedicated.

Pious believers recognise him as "Pei Fang Chen Wu Hsuan T'ien Shang Ti" (True Soldier and Superior Divinity of the Deep Heaven of the North).

The second of the most significant deities involved in the celebration is the highly revered Tin Hau, Goddess of the Seas and protector of all fishermen and boat people.

Celebrated for providing warnings of imminent storms and saving countless lives from wreckage, she is a popular motherly goddess in Southern China region and won the devotion of many fisherfolk.

Two more deities complete the celestial divinities taking part in the parade: Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy with her tranquil and ever compassionate smile; and Hung Shing, the terrifying God of the South with his menacing head-dress, unkind face, bushy black beard.

It originates from the custom in Southern Fujian and Chaozhou known as qianggu (Chinese: 搶孤; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: chhiúⁿ-ko·), where people snatch food that has been offered to the lonely spirits.

The three "Bun Mountains" are still placed in the area in front of Pak Tai Temple, and are constructed using the traditional fixation method — bamboo scaffolding.

At a quarter to midnight a paper effigy of the King of the Ghosts is set ablaze, enormous incense sticks are lit and the buns are harvested and distributed to the villagers, who, pleased to be sharing in this propitious good fortune, rejoice late into the night.

In addition to the villagers' immense urge to resume the ritual, a local cartoon movie My Life as McDull recalled the abandoned ceremony, giving rise to nostalgia in its viewers.