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First we want to investigate the composition of the sangha. A convenient date to take as our start is 1949, when the present communist regime took control of the whole of continental China. Previous to that date, most of the monks in Hong Kong were Cantonese speaking. They lived in a few monasteries scattered throughout some isolated spots in the New Territories and in the rather inaccessible peaks of Lantao Island. There they practiced their religion quietly. Occasionally, they were asked to perform ceremonies for the dead. They were rather typical of the monks in traditional China. Like the majority of the monasteries in China, the ones in Hong Kong were not public monasteries (***) and were rather easy-going. However, it must not be thought that these temples were completely cut off from China. There was always a steady stream of contact with other monasteries.
After 1949 a large influx of northern monks came with immigrants who tried to escape the communist regime. For a time they saturated local monasteries, but the majority have since migrated to Taiwan, Malaysia and elsewhere. Nowadays, northerners make up about half the total number of monks. Connections with South-East Asia and Northern America enable the monks to travel about rather frequently and this fact makes the Hong Kong sangha a rather fluid entity. Some of these northern monks came from renowned monasteries in central China and favoured a stricter life style. However, none of the temples in Hong Kong could maintain in full the system of public monasteries,
The coming of northern monks coincided with the beginning of certain developments in Buddhism unseen in previous ages. The unprecedented affluence created during the two decades 1960-80 was the material cause of these developments. Popular Buddhism flourished with the increase in population and wealth. Monks were increasingly sought to perform ceremonies over the dead () by well-to-do devotees and large sums of money were paid. Burial grounds in Hong Kong have become extremely scarce and expensive. The alternative to finding a burial plot or keeping cremated ashes within the equally crowded home was to deposit the ashes within a monastery. That way,