Christmas Education

First published: 14^th January 2015

What do you expect a school to ask on its application form? This form, issued by a Hong Kong secondary school, surprising asked:

Wait! Nativity? Nativity is the birth of Jesus Christ, so what answer do they expect? 25th December, maybe? Is this a question to verify that applicants claiming to be Christian know the basics?

The Chinese text for Nativity is 籍貫, which can mean one's native place, place of ancestry or registered birthplace. As the preceding line asks date and place of birth, the last meaning is unlikely. Did the writer of the form want to ask, "Where are you a native of?", and then guess that, as nation becomes nationality, then native becomes nativity? Note that the question is not asking for nationality, because that is written as 國籍.

Why a secondary school needs to know the place of ancestry of its prospective pupils is unclear, the school does not have a public policy of selecting students by their ancestry. The concept of ancestral home did feature in the proposed curriculum guide on Moral and National Education and was discussed in the public consultation on the subject before the proposals were withdrawn.