Buddhism | Expat | Hong Kong

Community, Culture, and Assimilation

How everyday Hong Kong Buddhism quietly reshaped an expat’s life

Photo by Artem Korolev on Unsplash

Living in a foreign culture subtly changes you, often without you being aware of it. Only now, after considerable reflection, can I outline how the spiritual atmosphere of my transplanted home has worked its way into my mindset. I have learned to embrace it, and I can see how I am a better person for it.

As outwardly secular as I am, Hong Kong is, under the surface, strongly Buddhist. It is not my place to explain this set of beliefs beyond showing how they have made their mark on me bit by bit, over time, inexorably, and have worked a sort of magic on my way of thinking since I arrived here alone some 15 years ago.

According to Wikipedia, Buddhists make up about 13 percent of the Hong Kong population. Yet, its influence is much larger than this small percentage suggests. Small private shrines can be seen everywhere outside places of business, often with incense and offerings of fresh fruit. Periodically, according to some schedule of events, small ceremonial stoves burn special, seasoned wood and replica money from special shops that sell such items.

Traditional Buddhist offerings of fruit, candles, and incense | Photo by Kelvin Zyteng on Unsplash

Behind these smells and ashes that float on the evening air, dozens, scores, I don’t know how many kindergartens, schools, hospitals, elderly residences, and youth organisations exist to live the Buddhist teaching of giving back. Buddhism’s benevolent influence on Hong Kong and on me is inestimable.

A dinner table example of that influence is the local taboo against leaving your chopsticks sticking out of your rice bowl because it looks like the funeral rite of offering a blessing to the Buddha. It is considered rude, disrespectful, and you just don’t do it. My wife has needed to remind me of this more than once, and you don’t need to be especially devout to follow it. It is sort of like Western culture’s superstition around Friday the thirteenth, which can be traced back to early Christianity.

Much more monumental influences are found in the architecture of Hong Kong. The city is dotted by large and small shrines, monasteries, and other structures. Smack in the middle of the high-rises of the busy residential district of Diamond Hill and across the road from a large shopping centre, Hollywood Plaza, is the sprawling Chi Lin Nunnery compound. Its quiet gardens and walkways are a lovely refuge from the hectic city, and also home to a wonderful Buddhist-style vegetarian restaurant that my wife and I visit regularly and it is always full.

Big Buddha near Po Lin Monastery, Hong Kong | Wikipedia Commons

Adorning many postcards, the “Big Buddha” near the Po Lin Monastery is best accessed by a cable car ride across the picturesque hills of Lantau Island. Thronged with saffron-clad monks, worshippers, and tourists, we do not follow the hoards up the umpteen steps to the 34-meter-tall golden statue that names the place. Instead, Eve spends some time worshiping at one of the shrines, and then we enjoy the set vegetarian menu at the enormous and always-packed restaurant where reservations are a must.

From the monumental back to the dinner table, the quiet Buddhism of Eve and her family, who are now my family in Hong Kong, has quietly influenced me to be calmer and to look more inwardly, and to use a word I wouldn’t have dared use, to be more spiritual. I see the value in slowing down and experiencing more completely. My new home and my new family have changed me for the better.