Recreating Local Tradition : The Study of the Hang Hau Hakka Unicorn Dance in Hong Kong

Since the late 19th century, the Hakka community in Hong Kong has been practising the unicorn dance, an auspicious cultural symbol, on celebratory occasions. The practice serves for sustaining Hakka community members. In 2013, the Hong Kong government identified the Hakka community's unicorn dance as one of the heritage properties and proceeded the application of the fourth national list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in China under the auspices of UNESCO's 2006 program. The application succeeded and eventually turned this practice into the cultural capital of the Hakka community in Hong Kong. Such cultural transmission has changed and re-created the socio-cultural meanings of these social traditions. By investigating how the Hakka community in Hong Kong today defines, preserves, transforms and interprets the unicorn dance, this ethnographic research argues that emerging global discourse of intangible heritage has empowered non-dominant cultural groups like the Hakka community and preserved cultural diversity in local society.