Month: January 2026

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The spirit of the Horse and Lunar New Year

The Horse in the Chinese zodiac symbolises speed, vitality and freedom, and years ruled by this sign are seen as full of possibility and momentum. People born in Horse years are often described as sociable, adventurous and independent – the friends who rally everyone together, book the trip and somehow squeeze three experiences into one afternoon. That same spirited energy runs right through Hong Kong during Lunar New Year, when the city comes alive with colour, incense, flowers and food.

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A festival born from legend and the farming calendar

Those same elements live on in Hong Kong today in the form of red lanterns, spring couplets on doorways, incense, drums and lion dances in the streets – all meant to sweep out bad luck and invite in a fresh start.

In a Horse year, that sense of renewal feels even stronger, because the Horse is associated with movement, freedom and charging confidently into the future.

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Is Chinese New Year a good time to visit Hong Kong?

In a word, no. Among all the festivals on the Hong Kong calendar, Chinese New Year is the one that truly stops the city. Families meet up for reunion dinners, businesses close, and the usual bustle of the city gives way to family time at home, temple trips and lots and lots of meals.

Whilst there are things to do like the Lunar New Year Parade on the first day of the holiday, and the 23-minute firework display on the harbour on the second day… other than this visitors who don’t have family connections may be disappointed. Our recommendation is to visit the week BEFORE Chinese New Year to experience the excitement ahead of the actual dates such as the flower markets, street calligraphers letting you make your own meaningful banners (fai chun), and markets full of red and gold decorations.

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Soak up the pre‑New Year buzz in old Hong Kong streets

In the weeks leading up to Lunar New Year, traditional neighbourhoods transform into living shopping lists of festive essentials. Wander through markets piled high with tangerines, melon seeds and towering boxes of cookies, and you’ll see why locals spend so much time preparing – it’s as much about the atmosphere as the snacks.

This is the perfect time to join our Lunar New Year Shopping Tour in Causeway Bay and let our excellent partner @explore_hongkong tell you what all the foods, flowers and lucky decorations really mean. You’ll learn why kumquats symbolise “gold”, how to choose the right couplets for your door, and which treats every Hong Kong family stocks up on before the big day.

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Visit temples for Horse‑worthy good luck

No Lunar New Year in Hong Kong is complete without a temple visit. Locals head to Man Mo, Wong Tai Sin and other temples to burn incense, thank the gods for the past year and ask for blessings in the one to come.

During the Year of the Horse, many people will focus on wishes related to career moves, travel and bold personal changes – all themes connected with the Horse’s dynamic spirit. Join our one of our private tours to watch fortune sticks being shaken, see how locals make offerings, and learn the etiquette so you can participate respectfully.

If this is your year, be sure to make a special offering at the Wong Tai Sin Temple to ensure that everything runs smoothly for you!

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From temples to track: the Jockey Club’s CNY Raceday

While placing a bet is part of the tradition for many Hongkongers, the whole event is really about “trying your luck” for the year ahead, enjoying the festival atmosphere and soaking up another facet of local culture. At Hong Kong Greeters we don’t advocate gambling, but we love helping guests understand why an afternoon at the races – complete with drums, lion dances and New Year decorations – sits right alongside flower markets and temple visits in the local CNY playbook.

One very Hong Kong expression of New Year optimism is Chinese New Year Raceday at Sha Tin Racecourse, organised by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

Ask us if you would like to include this visit in one of your tours, because as an overseas visitor, there are also special areas to take advantage of that only you can access!

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Bring Horse energy into your own year

Whether you’re a Horse yourself or just borrowing its bold energy for the year, Hong Kong is an inspiring place to set your intentions for the months ahead. Between temple visits, harbour views and shared meals, you’ll have plenty of moments to pause, reflect and decide what you want your “gallop” through the year to look like. 恭喜發財 (gung hei faat coi) or Happy Chinese New Year!!

Hong Kong’s Jumbo Floating Restaurant began life as a symbol of prosperity and spectacle in the 1970s and ended with a mysterious capsizing in the South China Sea in 2022, while under tow to an undisclosed new home (rumoured to be Cambodia). For decades it was a near‑mandatory stop on Western visitors’ itineraries, a place to try Cantonese banquets, be handed chopsticks for the first time (with knives and forks quietly available), and soak up a fantasy of imperial China against the very real backdrop of Aberdeen’s fishing community.

From fishermen’s barges to a “floating palace”

Floating restaurants in Aberdeen grew out of fishermen’s barges from the Pearl River Delta, where people added simple stages and kitchens so fishing families could host banquets, sing, and socialise without going ashore. In the 1920s–30s, Hong Kong fishermen began operating similar boats, at first serving only the fishing community, then gradually opening to city dwellers and tourists as word spread about fresh seafood eaten right above the water where it was caught.

By 1952, the Tai Pak Floating Restaurant was operating at Aberdeen, eventually seating hundreds and helping establish the idea that eating afloat, among moored junks and sampans, was part of “real Hong Kong.” These restaurants offered both an accessible luxury for locals celebrating weddings and banquets and an exotic, lantern‑lit world that early Western visitors felt they “had” to experience when Asia was still a long-haul, once‑in‑a‑lifetime trip.

Building Jumbo – fire, rebirth, and VIP guests

In the early 1970s, herbal tea magnate Wong Lo‑kat decided to outdo Tai Pak with a vast new floating palace called Jumbo, built at Kowloon Chung Hwa shipyard for around HK$14 million and decorated like a Qing‑style imperial palace. Before it could open, a welding spark triggered a catastrophic four‑alarm fire on 30 October 1971, destroying the nearly finished structure and killing 34 people while injuring dozens more, a tragedy that forced a complete rebuild.

Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho stepped in, bought the project in 1972, and poured roughly HK$30 million into a new Jumbo, which finally opened to the public on 19 October 1976 and would later be grouped with Tai Pak and Sea Palace under the “Jumbo Kingdom” banner. In its heyday, Jumbo hosted royalty and celebrities; among the most famous visitors was Queen Elizabeth II, who dined there during an official visit, helping cement its image as the place to go in Hong Kong for a showpiece Cantonese seafood banquet.

Tourists: Movies and Instagramable Moments!

From the late 1970s through the 1990s, Jumbo became a must‑do for Western visitors, especially when travel to mainland China was still restricted and Hong Kong acted as a “South Gate of China.” Tour groups would pile into sampans or tour boats, step onto the dragon‑guarded gangway, and be ushered into vast banquet halls where, for many guests, this was their very first encounter with live seafood tanks, dim sum trolleys, and the slightly daunting gift of chopsticks placed at each setting.

Jumbo’s theatrical interiors—golden dragons, carved wood, and bright neon—made it a natural film location. It appears (or is strongly associated) in:

• Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” (1973), which uses Aberdeen’s floating restaurants as part of its Hong Kong sequences.
• The James Bond film “The Man With the Golden Gun” (1974), widely cited as featuring Jumbo or its sister floating palace, reinforcing its bond with the 007 mythos.
• Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” (2011), in which modern Hong Kong stands in for a global outbreak’s origin, with Jumbo providing a visually iconic backdrop.

Decline, closure, and the South China Sea

Despite surviving the Asian financial crisis and later global downturns, Jumbo struggled in the 2000s as tastes shifted and operating costs rose, and by the late 2010s it was no longer the guaranteed money‑spinner it once had been. The 2019 protests and then the Covid‑19 pandemic dealt the final blow; Jumbo ceased operations on 3 March 2020 after posting years of losses, and its long‑time backer Stanley Ho passed away shortly afterwards in May 2020.

In June 2022, with no clear rescue plan in Hong Kong, the owners arranged for Jumbo to be towed out of Aberdeen Harbour to an undisclosed overseas yard, widely reported as somewhere in Southeast Asia. On 18 June, while passing near the Paracel (Xisha) Islands in the South China Sea, the vessel reportedly encountered “adverse conditions,” took on water, and capsized; the company initially said it had sunk in water over 1,000 metres deep, later clarifying that it had capsized and salvage would be extremely difficult, with subsequent reports indicating it ultimately sank and parts of the wreck lodged on a reef.

What’s left of Jumbo today?

Physically, the famous barge is gone from Aberdeen, but fragments of its story—and even pieces of its fabric—live on around Hong Kong.

For visitors today, the spirit of Jumbo survives in a few key ways you can point out on tour:

• Aberdeen itself, where guides can explain the old network of floating restaurants, the fishermen’s lifestyle, and show archival photos of Jumbo Kingdom in its neon prime. To explore more and taste some authentic fisherman cuisine, we do run a monthly immersive trip to Aberdeen. Link here for more information.
• The Central Harbourfront, near the Hong Kong Observation Wheel, where themed costume photo booths continue the tradition of “dressing up” in Chinese outfits—an echo of the old souvenir costume photos taken on Jumbo’s ornate staircases and throne chairs.
• Pop culture: screenings of “Enter the Dragon,” “The Man With the Golden Gun,” and “Contagion,” along with local films that used Jumbo as shorthand for “Hong Kong glamour,” allow visitors to time‑travel back to when a dinner at a floating restaurant was the highlight of a first Asia trip.