Hong Kong puts on martial art story lantern show ahead of festival

Special Report: Spring Festival Special 2009

HONG KONG, Jan. 30 (Chinese media) -- Hong Kong has put on a

spectacular lantern show that for the first time features fictional characters

created by popular martial art story writer Louis Cha, or Jin Yong, to celebrate

the upcoming Spring Lantern Festival.

The lantern show, now on display at the Hong Kong

Cultural Center Piazza until March 1, was created by a designer who said hes

pent three months visualizing the characters.

The characters depicted in the form of lanterns

included Guo Jing, Huang Rong, Yang Guo, Xiaolongnv as well as other well-known

characters that appeared in the novels The Legends of the Condor Heroes and The

Return of the Condor Heroes.

In terms of time lines, the two novels have

overlapping parts.

The Legends of the Condor Heroes is one of the

masterpieces by Louis Cha, whose works were among the most widely read by

Chinese readers around the globe, old and young alike. It tells the adventurous

stories of Guo Jing and Huang Rong, who rose to the status of kungfu masters as

they adventured around ancient China over the course of several years, helping

the disadvantaged and punishing the villains.

The Return of the Condor Heroes carried on the story

left over from the Legends.

The pair of white condors that usually accompanied

Guo Jing and Huang Rong on their adventures and a big grey condor that

accompanied Yang Guo will be included, too.

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, which organized the

lantern show, said it will also put on three other major lantern carnivals to

celebrate the Spring Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the lunar

year's first month, or Feb. 9.

The carnivals will traditionally feature Chinese

songs and dance, golden oldies, fortune-telling, games stalls, lantern quiz and

roving entertainment.

The East Asian Games, which is to be held in Hong

Kong in December 2009, will also be one of the themes for displays at the three

carnival venues.