Overseas Tours
The first overseas tour by the Hong Kong Morris was to Manila in 1980. A highlight of this tour was the performance of a double jig on the catwalk of one of the bars in the city's Ermita district by a member of the side and an obliging Filipina lady who added morris bells to her customary dance costume. In 1984 a strong Hong Kong Morris side visited Perth (Australia) and danced with the local ladies' side The Fair Maids of Perth.
Subsequent tours have included the 1986 Guangzhou Tour, the 1987 North American Tour to Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver (a tour in which the side discovered the delights of hot-tubbing and danced with the US sides MossyBacks and Misty City and the Canadian Victoria and Vancouver Morris sides); the 1988 Brisbane Tour to Maleny Folk Festival, at which the side's musician was asked to accompany an Australian women's side of practising witches; the 1989 Taiwan Tour, whose participants enjoyed the unfamiliar experience of being cultural ambassadors for British education; the 1990 Bangkok Tour (also known as the Tour of Shame), the less said about which the better; the 1995 Kuala Lumpur Tour, which doubled as a honeymoon for recently-married Steve and Myra Ford; and the 1997 Canberra Tour, where the Hong Kong Morris provided a visual history of morris dancing, in its varied styles, as a specially-invited side, and also performed its mumming play and led a session of chorus singing.
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