Department of History receives LCSD funding for ‘Basin Feast’ research

The Department of History has received a HK$1.48 million grant from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Funding Scheme of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) for a three-year research project entitled “Ritual, Food and Community Cohesion - the Story of Basin Feast”. This project is also on LCSD’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Hong Kong.

Serving as the Chair and Principal Investigator of the project, Professor Stephanie Chung will work with her co-researchers including Dr Kwok Kam-chau, Lecturer I of the Department of History; Dr Chan Kwok-shing, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology; and Dr Pang Suk-man, Assistant Professor of the Department of History at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Professor Clara Ho, Head and Professor of HKBU’s Department of History, will serve as an academic advisor. 

“Basin Feast” (Poon Choi) has a long history in Hong Kong’s rural areas. In the walled villages in the New Territories, Poon Choi is shared by the participants of events such as ancestor worship ceremonies, Jiu festivals and weddings. “Basin Feast” serves several social functions, as it reaffirms the identity of community members and maintains their unity. The team will retrace the history of “Basin Feast” as well as its cultural connotations, historical background and the inheritance of the tradition through field trips, the collection of oral histories, and the reorganisation of historical documents and photos. The research will conclude with a monograph and a series of talks.

The team will also develop teaching materials on “Basin Feast” for local schools and create an online video and a downloadable photo database. This is the second project from the Department of History to receive support from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Funding Scheme. The previously approved project focuses on the Pok Fu Lam Fire Dragon Dance, and it is also being conducted by Professor Chung and her colleagues.