Reflections | Much like Christmas, Chinese holidays with religious origins have become about family

Christmas is in two weeks’ time and considering the annus horribilis that 2020 has been, we need all the cheering up we can get. A secular holiday as much as a religious one, the festive season has been appropriated by non-Christians all over the world as an opportunity to indulge in activities from shopping and feasting to drinking and worse.

Christmas, as it name implies, marks the birthday of Jesus Christ. But like the Official Birthday of Queen Elizabeth, observed in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries at the end of May or beginning of June, Christmas is Jesus’ assigned birthday, not his actual one. In fact, there are Christians, such as those of certain Orthodox congregations and other Eastern Churches, who celebrate the birth of Christ in January.

The Chinese also celebrate the birthdays of historical religious figures. The birthday of Siddhartha Gautama, or the Buddha, is celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month in the traditional Chinese calendar among Chinese and Tibetan Buddhists. Elsewhere, adherents of other Buddhist traditions celebrate it about a week later.

Whichever day it is observed, one of the main celebratory activities sees devotees pour water on effigies of the Buddha to commemorate the cleansing of the infant Siddhartha on the day of his birth by waters from heaven or the mouths of dragons, depending on the source of the story. Prayers meetings and religious rituals are also organised, which are attended by large numbers of devotees.

Avalokiteshvara, known in Mandarin as Guanyin, is an important deity in Chinese Buddhism, whose birth is also celebrated. Popularly known in English as the Goddess of Mercy (though the earliest Chinese images of Avalokiteshvara were in the male form), her birthday, or birthdays, are celebrated on the 19th day of the second, sixth, ninth and 11th months.