ENG-2020 — Page 375

Chapter 21

Religion and Custom

Hong Kong's Basic Law guarantees

religious freedom, allowing a diversity of faiths to coexist harmoniously. Traditional Chinese festivals are celebrated along with religious holidays from a number of faiths.

Traditional Chinese Festivals

The Lunar New Year is the most important festival in the Chinese calendar. It marks the first new moon of the year, considered an auspicious time for friends and relatives to visit one another and to exchange gifts, while children and unmarried adults receive lai see, or 'lucky' money, in red packets. The Dragon Boat Festival follows on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month to honour ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who chose death over dishonour by drowning himself in a river. Dragon boat races and rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves are highlights of this festival. Next comes the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, when families and friends gather under the full moon with colourful lanterns and eat moon cakes, a traditional festival delicacy. Apart from these celebrations, the Chinese visit their ancestral graves during the Ching Ming Festival in spring and the Chung Yeung Festival in autumn. At Chung Yeung, many climb hills to remember one family's flight up a mountain in ancient times to escape a plague.

Buddhism

Buddhism was introduced into China from India more than 2,000 years ago. It is one of the main religions practised in Hong Kong, with around one million followers and more than 400 temples, some over 700 years old. Notable worship sites include the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, famous for its giant bronze statue of a seated Tian Tan Buddha that is also known as the Big Buddha, and the Chi Lin Nunnery in Diamond Hill, Kowloon, which is a cluster of temple structures built in the architectural style of the Tang dynasty. Both are popular visitor attractions.

Local Buddhist groups have long aided social welfare and education, operating nearly 100 primary and secondary schools, homes for the elderly and centres for children and youth. The Hong Kong Buddhist Association, for instance, was founded in 1945 and seeks to propagate Buddhist teaching and culture while providing charitable services to the public, including

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