Christmas and Easter celebrations among Hong Kong's Christians

[JoelH]

Hi brothers and sisters,

I'm going to share with you what I see when I grew up in 1980s and 90s Hong Kong about how HK Chinese Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter. As we are not a Western society much of what you take as granted as traditions for these two occasions will not be found in HK.

Take Christmas for instance. In the secular society of HK Christmas it is the dating couples rather than families that go out to have Christmas dinners. The unsaved like to organize Christmas parties (in particular on Christmas eve) that run like what we would call as balls or disco parties, and most people will buy Christmas presents to their loved ones. Christians tend to have gatherings on Christmas eve. On Christmas day the mainline Protestants go to Christmas morning service, but evangelical churches tend to have Sunday closest to Christmas as "Christmas service". Some may go travelling out on Christmas day. With regards to food most people will have a more Western diet on Christmas Eve and/or Day, with food like steak, pork-chops, or chicken cooked in Western way instead of Chinese way, but Christmas puddings or turkeys or hams are not considered very special such that they must be eaten.

Easter is another festival that is very different in HK among Christians. Usually on Good Friday mainline Protestants will ahve a very silent mourning-like service in the morning, while evangelical churches have a very detailed account of the calvary, more emotionally charged service on Friday evening. On Sunday there will be a service and each one will receive a boiled egg sumbolizing new life i.e. resurrection of Jesus has allowed us to have eternal life by trusting in Him as our Lord and Saviour. Most will also buy chocolate eggs in advance and it is eaten from Eastern afternoon onwards. Apart from these there is no "special food" - no ham dinner to say, for instance.

Overall, probably due to the Chinese culture the way these two occasions are observed in HK seems to be "more Jewish" - for instance, boiled eggs for Easter seem to correlate to modern Jewish practice of eating saline-dipped eggs at Passovers, and less Western. I observed that HK Christians just don't care much about Easter bunnies for instance.

Feel free to ask me questions, or offer feedbacks here.

YBIC,

Joel

[Heavensent]

One of my co-workers is leaving for HK at the beginning of 2006. He will work for an English speaking church called Evangelical Community Church for a two year period. He will be working as the Middle School Coordinator for the church’s second location on Hong Kong Island.

I told him this is such an awesome opportunity and wish him the best. I pray there will be a mighty harvest in China. I'm hearing that the people there are very open to hearing about Jesus. Have you heard the same?

Please keep my friend in your prayers. I pray that God uses him in a mighty way for His glory.

:amen

[JoelH]

If he goes to an English-speaking church, it is likely he is to work among the expat Westerners community or Filipino/Indonesian domestic helpers. A little different from the local HK Chinese church but still am mighty work for God.

And indeed the gospel is reaching far and wide among Chinese - in HK alone most of the Christians are teenagers and young adults in their 20s or 30s. In mainland China the scene is even more amazing. Much of western Christian "traditions" are seen as extrabiblical or Western philosophies and they are not practised among locals.

I would say in terms of beliefs the brethersn in HK and China are very zealous in their beliefs, there are no dodging questions like "Should I divorce" or constant feeds of fuzzy Sunday school lessons like PDL (they may mention PDL a couple of times, and then immediately go on to hard crunching Bible studies. No time for "traditions" like Calvinism either)

YBIC,

Joel