Christmas is a time for families to get together. Actually this is a western concept. In Hong Kong the Lunar New Year is the time for families to get together. But many Hong Kong families are stuck with a Christmas reunion because of overseas academic habits.
If you go to school or university in an English-speaking country, you will get your winter break at Christmas. And you will not get a Lunar New Year holiday at all. Holidays without a fixed date in the calendar are troublesome. People have had wars over the date of Easter. So they prefer to avoid lunar landmarks over there.
This is of some significance in Hong Kong because so many young people do the later stages of their education overseas. I am not sure what this tells us about the local education system. Almost everyone who opts for an overseas secondary school complains that the local version overdoes the pressure and examinations.
Some of them tell alarming stories of weak or confused students being ruthlessly culled by 'prestige schools' eager to preserve their averages. Local universities do not have these distressing features, but when it comes to attracting applicants who have escaped the local system by going to international or overseas schools, they do not try very hard. Even if they did I am not sure that it would make much difference.
Most young people feel that at a certain stage in their lives they want to leave nest, spread wings, sow wild oats and other picturesque metaphors. In short, a lot of people want to go to university away from home, not although, but because it is away from home. This is most marked in countries with a centralised university admission system. In Britain it would be regarded as eccentric (at least outside Scotland) to go to a university in your hometown, however good the local spot may be. Oxford residents apply for Cambridge.
At certain times of the year to or from intercontinental destinations with big education industries become unobtainable because the planes are full of students - whose parents have paid through the nose for early bookings. Last-minute travellers have to resort to unconventional airlines, or even routes, because their usual carrier is full of young things in baggy trousers and funny hats. Some departure times at Chek Lap Kok attract clusters of family groups.