Recent events in Hong Kong are reminiscent of the Old Testament, when Baal's
statue fell before the Ark of the Covenant. A number of religious meetings were
held on the occasion of Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese, including a
24-hour Christian prayer meeting from 6pm on June 30th until 6pm on July 1st.
Not only Christians held meetings: around 40,000 Buddhists, including 1,000
monks, met on the same day for a prayer meeting "to bless Hong Kong". Buddhist
monks prayed for Hong Kong for an additional 30 hours, into the early hours of
the morning of July 2nd. At around 5am that morning, following rainfall, a
landslide destroyed the steps, a house and two temples in the "Ten Thousand
Buddhist Temple" in Shatin. This temple contains 13,000 Buddhist statues, the
largest number of any of Hong Kong's temples, including the largest Buddha
statue. Some of them were broken into pieces, others knocked over, including
the best-known Buddhist statue, that of Kwan Yin, the "Goddess of Mercy".
Further landslides ruined the foundations, and the whole area has become
unusable. The government has forbidden people to enter the area. A Chinese
paper, Ming Pao, printed photographs of the landslide under the headline "He
can't even help himself!"
Source: Dennis Balcombe and N. Anderson, P.O. Box 608, Fanling, N.T., Hong
Kong; e-mail: anderson@hk.super.net