The 140th Anniversary

The 140th anniversary of the arrival of the first Basel missionaries in Hong Kong was no small event. It was celebrated by members of the Tsung Tsin mission churches throughout the year of 1987 with special services, performances, and banquets, the opening celebration at the Sha Tin home for the elderly, the thirtieth anniversary celebration of the kindergarten, the opening of two new child care centers, retreats, and workshops. Months of planning and preparation were involved. People like Mr. C., the Shung Him Tong pastor, the church board members, and their counterparts at other Tsung Tsin mission churches and schools helped to organize the programs, prepare speeches, write special commemorative publications, arrange numerous rehearsals, and organize invitations for special guests. Members of the missionwide choir, including several of the best vocalists from each church, convened each week to rehearse for the occasion. A poster was designed depicting four missionaries—two from the Basel mission and two from the Rhenish mission—standing at

the bow of a ship, its white sail emblazoned with a large red cross, making its way across the sea to China.

The highlights of the celebrations were a variety show on a Friday evening, March 20, and a Tsung Tsin missionwide thanksgiving service and banquet on Sunday, March 22, the Sunday closest to the date when Basel missionaries had arrived in Hong Kong 140 years earlier. Among the special guests in attendance at these events were fourteen official representatives from the Hakka church of Taiwan, eight delegates from the Hakka Basel mission of Malaysia in Sabah, two pastors from Hakka Chinese churches in Canada, and about eight representatives from the Basel mission in Switzerland. Officials from other Hong Kong and Macao churches and seminaries, and from the Hong Kong government, were also in attendance as honored guests.

The variety show was held at the huge Baptist college auditorium in Kowloon. Entire sections of the hall were roped off for members from each of the fifteen churches, for the VIPs, and for the parents and friends of the children who were performing, most of whom did not belong to the churches. The pastors of the Tsung Tsin mission churches and the president of the mission, Simon P. K. Sit, sat along the front row of the stage. The program began with a silent prayer, a Bible reading, a hymn, and another prayer, this last led by Mr. Sit, a Tsung Tsin church pastor, and a headmaster of one of the mission schools. Mr. Sit presented a brief history of the church in which he described how the German and Swiss missionaries had set sail from Europe 140 years earlier, their six-month trip at sea, and their arrival on March 19, 1847, which ultimately resulted in the Hakka church with its present membership of eight thousand.

The variety show consisted of hours of seemingly endless performances of acrobatics and song-and-dance routines by Tsung Tsin mission schoolchildren, who were dressed in stereotypical Chinese silk pajamas, in Swiss costumes, and even in chicken costumes hatching from huge eggshells. There were also dramatic performances, some of them depicting the history and work of the mission: the boat crossing the sea with the four missionaries; a group of young troublemakers who discovered Christianity and were reformed. Halfway through the program, after almost two hours, the former secretary of the Asia division of the Basel mission in Switzerland passed out commemorative silk flags to each school headmaster. After that, the audience slowly departed, though the performances continued.

On Sunday, Shung Him Tong held its 11:00 A.M. service as usual, but people were more dressed up, and there were several overseas guests in attendance. The bishop of the Hakka church in Malaysia, a former pastor for the Hong Kong Tsung Tsin mission, delivered the sermon in Hakka, and the former secretary of the Asia division of the Basel mission gave the benediction and led a prayer. He was also fluent in Hakka.

After the service, everyone rushed home for a quick meal before leaving in a fleet of cars and chartered bus for the 3:00 P.M. joint church service on Hong Kong Island. (Another bus arrived later to transport those who chose only to attend the banquet.) Close to a hundred people from Shung Him Tong, young and old, men and women, attended the service, and I was later told by one proud young woman that Shung Him Tong had had more representatives there than any other church, despite the greater distance they had to travel.

Another Shung Him Tong church member who worked on a financial committee for the whole affair told me that, as of two weeks before the event, individuals from Shung Him Tong had contributed more money to the event than had members of any other Tsung Tsin mission church. Still, he pointed out, this fact would probably just stir up the competitive spirit of the other churches. As it turned out, Shung Him Tong people bought an average number of tickets to the banquet, and the donation from the church was also about average.

The service was held at the Tsung Tsin mission church in Shau Kei Wan. It was the largest and newest church, built on the site of one of the first Basel mission churches in Hong Kong. Arrangements of flowers lined the entranceway, each with a ribbon inscribed with messages from various well-wishers. Among them were Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Lutheran Church Association of Hong Kong, the Archdiocese of Hong Kong and Macao, the Rhenish mission, the Protestant Church Association of Hong Kong, the Chinese Christian Organization for World Evangelism, the World Hakka Evangelical Association, and many others. In the main church hall extra pews had been added, and people overflowed into the aisles. The pastor's wife and several others from Shung Him Tong served as ushers, and many of the young people waved to us from the choir.

The service was conducted by foreign visitors and the highest Tsung Tsin mission officials, but the pastor and the chairman of the board from Shung Him Tong also played a small role. Mr. C., Mr. P., and several other board members took front-row seats with the Swiss guests.

Language was an issue that caused awkwardness, amusement, and some dissatisfaction throughout the afternoon and evening. It had been determined ahead of time that the main parts of the service should be conducted, as much as possible, in Cantonese and English because of the media presence, and for the sake of the local Hong Kong VIPs. Several board members from Shung Him Tong, as well as representatives from Basel, expressed some disappointment at this decision. One man from Shung Him Tong thought it more important to consider the guests from Malaysia and Taiwan who spoke Hakka but not Cantonese. Mr. Sit began the service with an announcement that, "although this is a Hakka mission, we will use Cantonese today." The Swiss pas-

tor from Basel, who spoke fluent Hakka and no Cantonese, was asked to deliver his sermon in English rather than Hakka. As one Shung Him Tong board member explained to me later, somewhat illogically, this was because he was there to represent Switzerland. The main sermon, by this Swiss pastor, outlined some history of the mission and raised questions about its future after 1997 and its link to other Chinese churches. Another long speech was made by a Tsung Tsin mission high official who was once a student of Luo Xianglin. He painstakingly listed the numbers of converts made and new mission stations, schools, and hospitals opened in Hakka regions each year since 1847, until he was cut off at the turn of the century because time was running short.

The pastor from Shung Him Tong read a Bible passage in faltering Cantonese, and the women sitting next to me worked hard to stifle their giggles. There was a short speech in Cantonese from the president of the Lutheran Church Association of Hong Kong. The same bishop who had spoken in Shung Him Tong that morning delivered a short speech in Hakka, which was translated into Cantonese, and the head of the World Hakka Evangelical Association, a man from Taiwan, also spoke in Hakka. After a few more messages of thanks and congratulations from pastors or officials from the Tsung Tsin Mission—delivered in German or Hakka, depending on to whom they were primarily directed toward—people finally made their way in droves to the restaurant for the celebration banquet.

The tone of the banquet was much less formal, and many who had not attended the service were there. There were about a thousand places reserved, and again Shung Him Tong church members made an impressive showing, enough to fill two large buses on the return trip to the village. I was seated at a table that included nine other people from Shung Him Tong, five of whom—including Tin, Pui Yan, and her husband—I knew quite well. Shortly after we were all seated and introduced, one young woman said that of all the tables, I had been seated at the wrong one. This was, they all joked, "the Chaozhou table." Of the ten of us, five were Chaozhou, one Cantonese, and only three Hakka. Two of the Chaozhou couples, an older couple and their son and daughter-in-law, were long-time church members who spoke Hakka. One woman was Cantonese and was there with her husband, who was related to the Shung Him Tong Tsuis. Another young woman was a descendant of Pang Lok Sam, and her cousin was there with his wife, who was also of Chaozhou descent.

In contrast to the church service, most of the speeches and entertainment at the banquet were lighthearted and mostly in Hakka. As one man explained to me later, there were many jokes about the language "because we are a Hakka church and like to hear Hakka used." At one point, the Swiss guests were asked to sing some folk songs in their native tongue. One chose a Swiss

folk song, and another sang in French. Following their comical and unrehearsed performances, the brother of the Shung Him Tong pastor, also a pastor at a Tsung Tsin mission church, was pushed to the microphone and urged to sing a Hakka mountain song. This he graciously declined, saying that they can only be sung in the hills while one works; instead he sang a lullaby in Hakka, which he said he learned from the German missionaries when he was a child. Everyone laughed and applauded loudly.

As one course of the banquet followed another, one of the Tsung Tsin mission officials stood at the microphone and pointed toward the crowd, saying, "Here we are, Hakka, Cantonese, Germans, and Swiss, and yet it is still a Hakka church!" Mr. P. was in a jolly mood and came to our table to repeat a joke that he found especially amusing: When one of the old Swiss women missionaries was in Yuen Long, someone asked her when she would learn to speak Cantonese since she was so fluent in Hakka. She replied that she had no intention of learning Cantonese, "because doesn't everyone in heaven speak Hakka?" The non-Hakka at our table laughed and one Chaozhou man was quick to inform us that in his family they also speak Hakka.