RELIGION AND CUSTOM
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Since Hong Kong has always depended on the sea for fishing and for trade, the most popular deities are those connected with the sea and the weather. Tin Hau, the Queen of Heaven and Protector of Seafarers, is said to be worshipped by 250,000 people. There are at least 24 Tin Hau temples in Hong Kong, the most famous being the one at Fat Tong Mun in Joss House Bay which is visited by thousands of worshippers during the Tin Hau Festival. As a result of reclamation, many of the Tin Hau temples which were originally built by the sea are now some distance inland.
Other leading deities include Kwun Yum, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy; Kwan Tai, the God of War and the source of righteousness; Pak Tai, Lord of the North and local patron of Cheung Chau Island; Hung Shing, God of the South Seas and a weather prophet; and Wong Tai Sin, after whom an area of New Kowloon is named. The temple built in honour of Wong Tai Sin, around which a public housing estate has been constructed, is extremely popular. Dedicated to the Gods of Literary Attain- ment and Martial Valour, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, run by the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, one of the largest and oldest of local charitable organisa- tions, is equally popular and famous.
Taoist and Buddhist organisations help to meet welfare, educational and medical needs in Hong Kong directly or by contributing to charitable organisations. Many temples have donation boxes to collect money for schools, hospitals or charities.
In the New Territories, traditional clan organisations have been preserved. Many villages have an ancestral hall where ancestral tablets of the clan are kept and ven- erated. The hall is the centre of both religious and secular activities among villagers of the same clan. Animism is found in the form of shrines or simply joss sticks at the foot of certain rocks and trees within which spirits are believed to dwell. It is especially common among Hakka villagers.
There are five major festivals in the Chinese calendar. The first and most important is the Lunar New Year. Gifts and visits are exchanged among friends and relatives, and children receive 'lucky money'. During the Ching Ming Festival in spring, ancestral graves are visited. The Dragon Boat Festival in summer 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, wines and fruits 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 remem- brance 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 total Christian community - Protestant and Roman Catholic
is estimated at about 10 per cent of the population. Of this number, the Roman Catholic Church makes up more than half while the remainder are Protestant.
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church was officially set up in Hong Kong when Pope Gregory XVI established the Apostolic Prefecture of Hong Kong in April, 1841. The first Prefect, Monsignor Theodore Joset, built a matshed church at what is now the intersection of
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