Autumn emerges through the muggy summer heat as the first leaves fall, a dry breeze can be felt and the routine of school begins again. Like the season, Chung Yeung Festival is a subdued holiday, with traditionalists heading up the mountains or solemnly tending to their ancestors’ graves.

This year, Chung Yeung Festival falls on October 7 and is a public holiday in Hong Kong. The 2,000 year-old legend surrounding the holiday tells of a soothsayer who warned a man of an impending plague and advised him to take his family up a mountain on the ninth day of the ninth month to save them. The man did as he was told and fled for the hills with food and chrysanthemum wine. When he returned, he found all his livestock slaughtered and realised he and his family had escaped death.

While most festivals in Hong Kong are celebrated with lively and loud carnivals, this one is more about peace and relaxation. One way the Chinese commemorate the day is by going on a hike. Despite the metropolitan atmosphere of its downtown areas, Hong Kong is a mountainous city covered in over 70 per cent of countryside, much of which contains hiking trails. Autumn, with its crisp air and clear skies, presents fine conditions to experience the natural surroundings, and many families take the opportunity to enjoy a hike and picnic on the day of Chung Yeung Festival. Climbing a mountain also symbolises a hope of moving upward, such as in one’s career or schooling. It is traditional to bring along cakes and chrysanthemum wine, in line with the legend.

Chung Yeung Festival is also known as Autumn Remembrance, as another major festival tradition is grave-sweeping, a form of ancestor veneration. Ancestor veneration is part of Chinese culture and is the act of looking after one’s ancestors in the afterlife, both to pay respect and in the hope that the dead will in turn watch over their living relatives. This ritual involves making a trip to the gravesite of family members who have passed and cleaning it of dust and debris. The visitors then burn incense, pray and sometimes have a graveside feast. They often burn paper offerings, which are paper objects crafted to look like cars, money, televisions or anything they feel their late relatives might enjoy. Flowers are left (commonly chrysanthemums, the bloom of choice for the holiday), temporarily dotting the cemeteries with bright colours.