Dozens of Hong Kong Christian groups petition against tourism body’s ‘Halloween Month’ campaign

Dozens of Christian groups in Hong Kong have signed a petition against a “Halloween Month” campaign launched by the city’s tourism body on the grounds that celebrating the western ghost festival could harm the wellbeing of the next generation.

The Christian group Yeshua Families Built in Love submitted an online petition to lawmakers and the government on Wednesday, with a Google Form showing 70 signatories, mostly representing other Christian groups in the city.

They urged authorities to stop the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s Halloween Month campaign, saying that the festival is “filled with the worship… of death, evil spirits, curses, and the dark world.”

“We must solemnly question: Is it worthwhile for the Hong Kong government to use precious public resources to celebrate this western ghost festival, which is associated with the supernatural, bloodshed, and death, in such a high-profile and citywide manner?” the Chinese-language petition read.

The annual celebration has ancient Celtic roots as a festival to mark the end of harvest and the start of a new year. It is also influenced by the Christian All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, marked on November 1 and 2. The night before All Saints’ Day was known as All Hallows’ Eve, and was later shortened to Halloween, according to History.com

HKTB campaign

The Hong Kong Tourism Board launched the campaign – the first of its kind – this year, organising citywide cosplay parties throughout October to mark the festival, which takes place at the end of the month.

Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park will host their traditional Halloween celebrations, while visitors in Halloween costumes, who meet spending thresholds, can redeem free special tram tickets.

But the Christian groups said it was inappropriate that a publicly funded tourism body leads the promotion of Halloween.

“When the Hong Kong government takes the lead in shaping a foreign ghost festival into a city-wide ‘cultural brand,’ it not only blurs the focus on high-quality local culture but also conveys extremely unhealthy and glorifying messages of darkness to society,” the petition added.

Lawmaker Junius Ho, a Christian, told reporters on Wednesday that government-backed Halloween celebrations should be restricted to a single day on October 31, when the event is actually marked.

“Making it a 14-day, city-wide frenzy would be too much,” Ho said in Cantonese, according to local media.

Police in China have sought to limit Halloween celebrations in the past, according to DWTV.

HKFP has reached out to the government for comment.

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Hans Tse is a reporter at Hong Kong Free Press with an interest in local politics, academia, and media transformation. He was previously a social science researcher, with writing published in the Social Movement Studies and Social Transformation of Chinese Societies journals. He holds an M.Phil in communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Before joining HKFP, he also worked as a freelance reporter for Initium between 2019 and 2021, where he covered the height - and aftermath - of the 2019 protests, as well as the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.