Religious Group in the New Territories Before the War

Submitted by brian edgar on Wed, 05/07/2014 - 23:42

Stanley Wort was a navy signaller stationed in Hong Kong from September 1940. While there he heard something that interested him from another member of his mess on the Peak:

He had come across a group somewhere in the New Territories, which was endavouring to merge the Christian faith with that of Islam and Judaism.

One day his friend drove him to the group's 'monastery' (Wort's quotation marks):

((We drove)) past all the innumerable duck farms to a sight high on a hill overlooking the sea (probably Deep Bay). It was a modern building with the Cross, the Crescent and the Star of David mounted over its main entrance. The monks, if that is what they were, wore white robes or white trousers and jackets. Some were European, some Oriental and some looked to be Indian, although they may have been from the Middle East. They made us welcome and gave us tea, but no attempt was made to talk about religion.

Can anyone throw any more light on this group?

I wonder if they were connected with, or influenced by the Cao Dai religion?

Wikipedia says it was founded in 1926, and that "it became enormously popular in its first few decades, gathering over a million members and converting a fifth to a fourth of the population of Cochinchina by 1940." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_%C4%90%C3%A0i)