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RELIGION AND CUSTOM
extremely popular. Dedicated to the Gods of Literary Attainment and Martial Valour, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, run by the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, is equally popular and famous.
One of the most important events of the year was the opening, in May, of the magnificent Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas at Tuen Mun in the New Territories. Completed after six years' work, at a cost of about $60 million, the three-storey temple is decorated with Chinese and Thai paintings and more than 10,000 images of Buddha.
Besides providing for spiritual needs, Buddhist and Taoist organisations help to meet welfare, educational and medical needs in Hong Kong, either directly, or by contributing to charitable organisations.
Religious studies are conducted at monasteries, nunneries and hermitages. Those at Sha Tin and Tsuen Wan are particularly popular with people living in urban areas because of their close proximity. The best-known monasteries, however, are situated in the more remote and unspoilt parts of the New Territories. One of them, the Buddhist Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, is renowned for its beautiful view of the sunrise and many visitors go there at weekends and on holidays. At Tao Fung Shan near Sha Tin, there is a Christian study centre on Chinese religion and culture, where the work of the Christian Mission to Buddhists has been carried out for many years.
In the urban areas, Buddhist Ching She (places for spiritual cultivation), Fat Tong (Buddha halls) and To Yuen (places for Taoist worship) have been established in residential flats to cater for the spiritual needs of the city dwellers. Various Buddhist and Taoist institutions hold gatherings in these places and the sutras are expounded.
Traditional clan organisations continue to play an important role in the lives of villagers in the New Territories. Many villages have an ancestral hall where ancestral tablets of the clan are kept and venerated. Animism is found also, in the form of shrines or simply the appearance of joss sticks at the foot of certain rocks and trees within which spirits are believed to dwell. This practice is common among Hakka and Chiu Chow_villagers.
There are five major festivals in the Chinese calendar, all of which are statutory public holidays. The first and the most important is the Lunar New Year when gifts and visits are exchanged among friends and relatives, and children receive red packets containing 'lucky money'. During the Ching Ming Festival in spring, ancestral graves are visited. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth moon with dragon boat races and by eating cooked rice wrapped in lotus leaves. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth moon. Gifts of mooncakes, wine and fruit are exchanged, and adults and children go into the parks and countryside at night with colourful lanterns. The ninth day of the ninth moon is the Chung Yeung Festival, when large crowds climb various hills in remembrance of an ancient Chinese family's escape from plague and death by fleeing to the top of a high mountain. Family graves are also visited on that day.
Christian Community
The Christian community Roman Catholic and Protestant is estimated to number about 456,800 people. There are more than 50 Christian denominations and independent groups in Hong Kong.
Roman Catholic
In addition to its pastoral and apostolic work, the Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong is engaged in a wide variety of activities in the fields of education, health care and social welfare. There are now 313 Catholic schools, with more than 281,000 pupils. Vocational