Chinese Jamaicans - Religion

Religion

Early Chinese migrants to Jamaica brought elements of Chinese folk religion with them, most exemplified by the altar to Guan Yu which they erected in the old CBA building and which remains standing there, even as the CBA moved its headquarters. However, with the passage of long decades since their ancestors first migrated from China, traditional Chinese religious practises have largely died out among Chinese Jamaicans. Some traditional practises persisted well into the 20th century, most evident at the Chinese Cemetery, where families would go to clean their ancestors' graves during the Qingming Festival in what was often organised as a communal activity by the CBA (referred to in English as Gah San, after the Hakka word 嫁山); however, with the emigration of much of the Chinese Jamaican community to the North American mainland, the public, communal aspect of this grave-cleaning died out, and indeed it was not carried out for more than a decade before attempts by the CBA to revive it in 2004.

Christianity has become the dominant religion among Chinese Jamaicans; they primarily adhere to the Catholic Church rather than the Protestantism of the majority establishment. Anglicans can also be found in the Chinese Jamaican community, but other denominations which are widespread in Jamaica such as Baptism (traditionally connected with the Afro-Jamaican community) are almost entirely absent among Chinese Jamaicans. Conversion of Chinese Jamaicans to Christianity came about in several ways; some made conversions of convenience in order to obtain easy legal recognition for marriages and births, while Chinese men who entered into relationships with local women were often absorbed into church community through the selection of godparents for their children, and the attendance of children at Sunday schools. Furthermore, Catholic teachers taught English at the Chinese Public School up until its closure in the mid-1960s, which facilitated the entry of Chinese Jamaicans to well-known Catholic secondary schools. There were a large number of conversions in the mid-1950s, evidence that the Chinese were "increasingly trying to adapt themselves to local society"; a former headmaster of the Chinese Public School, He Rujun, played a major role in attracting Chinese converts to Christianity in those years.

The newest wave of Chinese migrants from Hong Kong and mainland China are in many cases not Christians, but they have not brought with then any widely visible non-Christian religious practises. A few of them were already Protestants, and have formed their own churches, which conduct worship services in Chinese; due to language barriers, they have little connection to the more assimilated segments of the Chinese Jamaican community.