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Then & Now | 3 cheers for Hong Kong police during Mid-Autumn Festival Fire Dragon parade – they were helpful, efficient, with no one channelling their inner Darth Vader

  • The Hong Kong Police did a superb job during the Mid-Autumn Festival Fire Dragon parade in Tai Hang, managing crowd movements efficiently and courteously
  • After the parade the streets were both near-empty and free of litter – in other places, pavements would have been full of rubbish and roiling with rowdy drunks

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Members of the fire dragon dance team perform during the Tai Hang Fire Dragon parade in Hong Kong on September 29, 2023. The police did a superb job of controlling the event, Jason Wordie says. Photo: AFP

The Mid-Autumn Festival has come and gone again for another year, but enduringly pleasant memories remain; colourful lantern displays, the surfeit of mooncakes and Tai Hang’s fabulous Fire Dragon procession are all reminders of Hong Kong life at its absolute finest.

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After a four-year hiatus, this shimmering, smoking, supernatural neighbourhood protector was back doing what he does best – delighting the assembled throng with sheer kinetic spectacle.

Temporarily tangible, this evanescent representation of local “intangible cultural heritage” does not disappoint.

The Fire Dragon festival parade provides a welcome opportunity to give the Hong Kong Police a resounding three cheers for a job superbly done, instead of another of the sour raspberry blasts so richly merited in recent times.

The fire dragon dance parade returned following a four-year hiatus. Photo: Sam Tsang
The fire dragon dance parade returned following a four-year hiatus. Photo: Sam Tsang

Orderly but massive crowds directed by well-visible police were a welcome feature.

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