RELIGION, RESEARCH, THE ARTS, SPORT
areas.
Schools are maintained in connexion with each of them, with an aggregate of more than 4,000 pupils. Four of these schools have been opened within the past year and another is under construction. Houses have been built for 165 families.
Buddhist activities in the Colony have expanded in recent years. Free schools, free medical centres and general social welfare work have been sponsored by the Buddhist community. The branch of Buddhism chiefly followed is the Mahayana. Today, there are in Hong Kong about ten Buddhist monasteries and over two hundred Buddhist "Ching Suts" (hermitages), mostly situated on the mainland and Lantao Island. There are no large Taoist monasteries.
The non-Chinese Muslims in Hong Kong are Pakistanis and Indians and number about 1,500. There are about 5,000 Chinese Muslims. The first mosque was built in 1850 on the present mosque site in Shelley Street, and the existing construction dates from 1915 when the original mosque was entirely rebuilt. In 1870, the Muslims founded their own cemetery in Happy Valley, their dead having been buried in the Breezy Point area above the Western district of Victoria. A second mosque was built in 1896, in Nathan Road, Kowloon, but in 1902 it was transferred to the care of the military authorities for use by Indian troops.
The Sikh community and followers of the Sikh faith, numbering about 1,000, have had a temple in Hong Kong since 1870. The building was demolished during the Japanese occupation but it has since been rebuilt on a site in Queen's Road East.
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