Bun Festival upholding both tradition and safety
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    In response to the recent concerns about using replica buns at the Bun Scrambling Competition, the Hong Kong Cheung Chau Bun Festival Committee and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) made the following clarifications:

- As in previous years, three bun towers with real buns will be erected at the basketball court in Pak Tai Temple for worship of deities during the Bun Festival. People can continue to collect these buns after the festival as they did before. These three bun towers will not be used in the bun scrambling competition. A bun tower with replica buns will be erected at the adjacent football pitch for the bun scrambling competition.

- After gaining experience and feedback from participants in the past two festivals, the organising and co-organising parties noted that genuine buns would be easily damaged and become slippery after rain and moist weather. This would endanger competition participants and affect their performance. It was agreed that replica buns would replace the real buns this year. The arrangements both ensure the safety of the competition and maintain the tradition as people can still collect the real buns during the festival.

Ends/Friday, February 16, 2007
Issued at HKT 19:09

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