China–Hong Kong football rivalry China–Hong Kong football rivalry The China–Hong Kong football rivalry is a sports rivalry between the national association football teams of the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong. The rivalry has been exacerbated by Hong Kong's status as a Special Administrative Region of China, which means that it does not practise communism as on the mainland, a legacy of having been under British rule until the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. China and Hong Kong have been playing each other in football matches since a friendly in Hong Kong in 1978. In 1985, Hong Kong, then a British dependent territory,
Culture of Hong Kong surveys. The traditional Cantonese religiosity, including Mahayana Buddhism, was generally discouraged during the British rule over Hong Kong, which favored Christianity. With the end of British rule and the handover of the sovereignty of the city-state to China, there has been a renewal of Buddhist and folk religions. The art of "asking the dead" (Jyutping: Man mai; Traditional Chinese: 問米) has long been a tradition in Hong Kong. It is often common for living people to want to ask dead people about their lives in the underworld. In these rituals, people bring paper-made garments, paper-made money, and paper-made food to