ENG-1981 — Page 264

RELIGION AND CUSTOM

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The magnificent Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas at Tuen Mun in the New Territories was opened in May 1980. 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

Roman Catholic and Protestant

―

The Christian community

is estimated to number about half a million people, comprising more than 50 Christian denominations and inde- pendent groups in Hong Kong.

The Protestant and Roman Catholic churches have a Joint Committee on Development, which plans joint action in areas of mutual concern, with official representation serving on each other's committees. Church leaders issue joint pastoral letters and various bodies of both groups co-operate on a number of mission and service projects.

Roman Catholic Community

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