Each year in May, Hong Kong’s outlying island of Cheung Chau comes to life for the Jiao Festival, better known as the Cheung Chau Bun Festival . What began as a ritual to appease spirits now draws crowds for a day when banners ripple overhead and narrow streets fill with floats carrying elaborately costumed children.
The festivities build towards midnight, when the bun-scrambling race kicks off outside Pak Tai Temple. At the blast of a horn, 12 competitors charge a 14-metre-tall bun tower, climbing as fast as they can to collect as many bread buns as possible within three minutes, encouraged by a deafening crowd.
Each bun carries a different score, but they’re all stamped with the same two pink Chinese characters: ping on, meaning “peace”. These days, the buns fixed to the tower are made from reusable plastic rather than bread. Still, the edible version remains a beloved part of the tradition – eating one is said to bring peace and good health.
But where do all those symbolic Cheung Chau buns come from?
Credit: China News Service/Getty Images
Credit: Elvis Chung
Behind Cheung Chau’s buns
Founded in 1972, Kwok Kam Kee is one of the island’s oldest bakeries, known for classic baked goods such as wife cakes and walnut biscuits, as well as ping on buns filled with red bean, sesame or lotus seed paste. During festival season, the bakery churns out anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 of them.
Today, the bakery is run by Martin Kwok, the son of founder Kwok Kam-chuen. He’s steered the business into its next chapter with a steady stream of fresh ideas, including popular bun-making workshops. Kwok grew up on Cheung Chau and spent plenty of time around the bakery, though he recalls his father only ever letting him crack eggs and knead dough – never actually teaching him how to make the buns.
“Perhaps he felt the work was too gruelling, with no real future,” he says.
Instead, he studied electronic engineering in Hong Kong before moving to Singapore to work in finance. But as his father got older, talk turned to his retirement – and to shutting the bakery for good.
“I didn’t want it to disappear on my watch,” Kwok says. In an impulsive move, he resigned and returned to Cheung Chau. “It wasn’t just about keeping a small shop alive. I wanted to build a brand and take the ping on bun beyond Cheung Chau – even beyond Hong Kong.”
Credit: Elvis Chung
Credit: Elvis Chung
Credit: Elvis Chung
The evolution of Kwok Kam Kee
Kwok took over in late 2017 and spent his first six months learning the business from the ground up. Days were filled with weighing ingredients, shaping dough and baking batch after batch of buns; nights were spent poring over accounting spreadsheets and marketing plans.
“I was constantly thinking about how to innovate while maintaining tradition,” he says. “It was exhausting but immensely fulfilling.”
A breakthrough came through an unlikely collaboration with Japanese company Sanrio. Kwok launched ping on buns shaped like Hello Kitty, Pompompurin and other characters, pairing each design with new fillings such as taro, pumpkin lotus seed paste and green tea red bean.
The response was immediate: nearly 10,000 boxes, each containing four flavours, sold in a single festival season. Some of the older bakers were initially sceptical, but once locals got behind it, attitudes changed. “The old masters were chuffed. My father, who’s quite traditional, could hardly believe what he was seeing,” Kwok says.
Kwok kept experimenting, releasing themed editions, from oat-milk buns to a collaboration with Ovaltine. He’s also thinking about what to do next, including a softer bun for elderly customers who have difficulty swallowing, making sure the tradition remains accessible to as many people as possible.
For several years, Kwok Kam Kee has partnered with the cultural conservation NGO Hong Kong Resource Centre for Heritage to run bun-making workshops ahead of each festival. Now a seasoned baker, Kwok has taken on the teaching part, moving sessions to the Cheung Chau Cinema events space and bringing in ovens and equipment.
Plans are under way to expand the workshops to other locations in Hong Kong. And at Hong Kong International Airport in 2025, Kwok opened the shop T-Cube Intangible Cultural Heritage, selling ping on buns alongside other traditional crafts from Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland, including Yangzhou and Shu embroidery.
Looking back, Kwok often reflects on the advice his father once gave him, and how that continues to drive their family business: “The most important thing in life is not to fear being on the losing end. Try your hand at everything – that’s how you learn.”
When is the 2026 Cheung Chau Bun Festival?
This year, the Cheung Chau Bun Festival will run between 21-25 May with the Bun Scrambling final taking place on 25 May.
Learn to make ping on buns
Kwok founded T-Cube Culture and Education , which offers ping on bun-making workshops every Saturday and Sunday, priced at HK$198 per person (including two buns; one accompanying adult attends free with children under six). Private sessions can be arranged for groups of 20 or more.