Religion
The majority of Vietnamese migrants in Germany are at least nominal Buddhists. Vietnamese-style Buddhist temples they have set up serve as one of the most noticeable marks of their presence in the country, the most notable example being Lower Saxony's Vien Giac, the largest Buddhist pagoda in Europe. The temples, as well as street parades staged during important festivals, thus serve as important focal points for identity formation among Vietnamese Buddhists in Germany, and a sign that they are making themselves feel at home in their adopted country. At the same time, however, the temples and their visibility in public space have provoked backlash from German neighbours, who feel they are a symbol of non-assimilation to German society.
Catholics form a smaller community; as of May 1999, there were 12,000 Vietnamese Catholics in Germany, according to the statistics of the Conference of the German Bishops.
Read more about this topic: Vietnamese People In Germany
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words of the Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint’s picture.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“To sum up:
1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute.
2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.
3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“If ... we admit a divinity, why not divine worship? and if worship, why not religion to teach this worship? and if a religion, why not the Christian, if a better cannot be assigned, and it be already established by the laws of our country, and handed down to us from our forefathers?”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)