ENG-1970 — Page 257

RELIGION AND CUSTOM

195

to be found in the New Territories, particularly among Hakka villagers.

The Chinese as a whole observe five major festivals of the Chinese calendar. The first and the most important is the Lunar New Year. The customary exchanges of gifts and visits to relatives and friends are widely observed. During the Ching Ming Festival, which falls in spring, visits are paid to the graves of the family ancestors. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth moon of the lunar calendar and dragon boat races are held at different places throughout the Colony. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth moon, when gifts of mooncakes are exchanged among relatives and friends. The ninth day of the ninth moon is Chung Yeung, when large crowds climb Victoria Peak and other hills in imitation of a Chinese family of old who escaped death and misfortune by fleeing to the top of a high mountain. Visits to the graves of the family ancestors are also paid on this day as well as during the Ching Ming Festival.

The fact that Chinese may follow one or other of these ways or may combine them without any feeling of incongruity, has often made Christianity, with its exclusive claims, seem uncongenial to the Chinese spirit. Nevertheless Christianity is rooted deeply and growing rapidly in Hong Kong.

Its roots go back to the earliest days of the Colony, the first church being founded in 1842. Since that time, the Christian church has grown until today there are more than 450 churches, and chapels, grouped together in some 60 denominations. The number of Chris- tians in Hong Kong is estimated at slightly over 400,000—or about 10 per cent of the total population. There is an annual increase in communicant church membership of approximately four per cent. New churches and chapels are being organised in new housing estates and satellite towns.

While about 12 churches in the Colony hold services in English, the great majority of the congregations are Chinese speaking, mostly Cantonese and a few Mandarin. The major world denominations are represented in the Adventists, Anglicans, Alliance, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals, while churches of a Pres- byterian type are joined in the Church of Christ in China. There are, in addition, a number of non-denominational churches.