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Chapter 15 Notes on Some Vegetarian Halls in Hong Kong Belonging to the Sect of Hsien-T’ien Tao (The Way of Former Heaven) (1968)* On Saturday, 16 March 1968, members of the Society visited four vegetarian halls at Ngau Chi Wan, Kowloon, belonging to a religious sect called Hsien-t’ien Tao [Xiantian Dao]. These notes are based on materials provided for the visit, which we have rearranged and expanded slightly, and they include also a brief account of the visit itself. We chose vegetarian halls for our visit because they are, to many members of the public in Hong Kong, less known places of worship than the more popular temples, and the monasteries and nunneries of Buddhism . When we first came across these particular halls in Kowloon and discovered they were of the Hsien-t’ien Tao sect they seemed to us to be an obvious choice for another reason: they follow an ideology standing outside Buddhist and Taoist religion and again far less known to most people in Hong Kong than these faiths. A field study will have to be made before a full account can be written up of either vegetarian halls or of the Hsien-t’ien Tao and its operation in Hong Kong today. These notes are intended to provide the reader with some general outline information and are based on information already obtained by Marjorie Topley here, and in research elsewhere, and by James Hayes in interview with members of these Kowloon halls prior to the visit. The short bibliography of works which we have appended provide more detailed material on the background of this and similar religious groups, and their vegetarian halls in China in traditional times. We refer the reader also to an article by Marjorie Topley elsewhere in this volume on matters of religion in the nineteenth century.1 * Co-authored with James Hayes. First published in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, “Notes and Queries”, 8(1968):135–51. Reprinted by permission of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch. 1 See Chapter 10 in this book. 406 Chapter 15 I. The Vegetarian Hall and Its Purpose Vegetarian halls (chai-t’ang [zhaitang]) form part of the organization of more than one Chinese religion. They are found, for example, in Buddhism, and are perhaps better known to the general reader in this context; and they are found in connexion with a number of esoteric sects with mixed beliefs of which Hsien-t’ien Tao is one of the most popular in the region of Hong Kong. Their main purpose is to provide members of the connected faith with a place where they can meet and engage in common worship and also practise certain individual religious tasks, especially in the sect. They are usually residential today. The diet provided in such halls, is, as one would expect from their name, entirely vegetarian. Many halls today welcome members of the public who wish either to worship one of their deities, some of which are generally popular with the Chinese, or to take vegetarian food. Vegetarian meals are often provided, for example on such popular festivals as those of Kuan-yin [Guanyin]: “Goddess of Mercy”. The halls of all faiths are particularly popular in Hong Kong with unattached women especially working and retired domestic servants (amahs). They provide a home in old age and a pied-à-terre for the working woman. Many of the residents of the halls visited were retired amahs and several of their occasional inmates were said to be working amahs and factory girls. Halls also provide funeral benefits and house the soul-tablets of deceased members. It is usual for women to make regular payments during their working life for permanent residence and funeral arrangements later on. Another attraction of the halls, both Buddhist and sectarian, is that they recruit members through what one might term a pseudo-kinship system. One joins through a master who is regarded as something like a father; the fellow disciples of this man are termed (paternal) “uncles” and one’s own fellow disciples “brothers”. Halls normally house “family” households, and one hall may be connected with others through extended “family” relationships, and, in the case of the Buddhist halls, with monasteries and nunneries occupied by monk and nun “brothers” in the “family”. Genealogies may be constructed and kept. Such “families” practise “ancestor” worship (unmarried persons may receive such ritual attentions and have tablets placed for them in the hall...

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