Her ship-saving talents led directly to her deification, and she has since acquired two invaluable assistants, Thousand-Mile Eyes and Fair-Wind Ears. Her principal temple is at Joss House Bay on Tung Lung Island, about two miles east of Hong Kong Island. On her birthday, an all-day ferry service brings her worshippers from the main island, and the boat people arrive in sea-trains of junks towed by a launch, flying dozens of flags and Happy-Birthday banners. Every boat is packed to the gunwales with men, women and children jostling one another as they reach for sweet cakes, tea and soft drinks. At Joss House Bay, the passengers swarm ashore as if the boats were about to sink and climb a wide granite stairway to the temple. Incense sticks are lighted, roasted animals and red eggs are placed before the Goddess and a small contribution is handed to the temple attendant. Bursting firecrackers, lion dances and processions enliven the celebration until the men of the various fishing guilds wind it up with a hot scramble for “the luck,” a bamboo projectile with a number inside. It drops into the crowd like a bride’s bouquet, but the free-for-all that follows is no place for a bridesmaid. The winning team makes the year’s luck and gets possession of an elaborate portable shrine to the Queen of Heaven. Rich and poor, humble and great join without class distinction in having a gossipy, boisterous holiday. The people of Cheung Chau feel obliged to say a kind word for all the animals and fish who were executed to feed mankind during the past year, and this debt is squared by the four-day Bun Festival on their dumbbell-shaped island. Its date is set by lot, and usually falls in the last few days of the Third Moon or the first ten days of the Fourth Moon. No animals are killed and no fish are caught during the festival. Troupes of actors are imported to perform in an enormous temporary theater, with its roof of coarse matting supported on a bamboo framework tied together with rattan strips. Daily and nightly presentations of Cantonese Opera are put on with the performers in elaborate costumes, shrilling their lines above the tireless clamor of cymbals. The festival centerpiece consists of a triple-peaked bun mountain, or conical framework covered with varicolored buns from its base to its 60-foot summit. As soon as it is completed, it is covered with a tarpaulin to protect the buns until the climactic ceremony on the final day of the festival.