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argued a bit among themselves they were not militant people. Letters to the Editor were, however, written to the English press.
Let us look at the Chinese community that went up to this temple on a daily basis. Many more went up at weekends. Some of them I got to know quite well. The first to arrive every morning was a man and his wife, both in their eighties, who got up at about four o'clock. They then walked up the hill in the dark (there are now streetlights on the lower part of Hatton Road). The old couple would stay up at the temple until late afternoon when they would return to their home in Western District. The temple meant a great deal to them. Their lives were woven around it. They had spent some of their own hard-earned money on repairing it and providing for day-to-day necessities - like joss sticks and oil for the lamps.
During the day the old man would spend much of his time meditating. I saw him seated, frequently, swaying in a trance. Some maintain that the ultimate aim of meditation is to get one's soul to leave one's body. The danger is that it may be difficult to coax the soul, suspended in space in front of one's body, to return to its normal abode. All the time the old man was so occupied the wife was engaged in more mundane pursuits. She spent much of her time busying around cleaning the temple and listening to Buddhist music from a cassette player. She also prepared simple dishes such as congee. She made tea. I was frequently invited to drink with them.
Most people came up to the temple early in the morning. Those that had jobs to go to would hurry down the hill, at what was still a reasonably early hour, while the elderly, the retired, would stay in the vicinity of the Temple longer. Often they would remain there for the best part of the day. Many would exercise in styles varying from the different schools of 'hard' and 'soft' Chinese martial arts to quasi-western callisthenics. Others would tend flower beds they had managed to create from the sparse layer of top soil, while others, who were mostly handymen rather than craftsmen, would carry such items as tools, timber or cement up the hillside. In their own time, in stages, a section of trellis or a shelter was added here, and an extension to the Temple there. Of course if one had nothing to do one could chat, relax and while away the time. They played mahjong (especially popular on Sundays), or worshiped the benign, grubby statue of Kwan Yin, the