I'm not sure who in HK they asked, but just about every shop and restaurant there has a tiny altar and they build giant holes in buildings for the purpose of allowing dragons access to the water. It seems way more religious in everyday kind of ways than the US.
Like the post above regarding Japan, it's cultural symbolism. The only thing approaching religion in Hong Kong is money. Religion, as we in the West think of it, in terms of guiding entities, monuments, and communal gatherings is almost absent.
I think our language fails us a bit, and we need better delineation between religion (e.g. Christian), group philosophy (e.g. Hindu), and personal philosophies.
What I mean is, religion isn't a very useful work in the context of comparisons.
Yeah, the comment about Japan definitely spoke to how European-oriented cultures make a difference between religion and culture that may not exist in the same way elsewhere. At one level, the poll accepts what people say (how they interpret their own activities) instead of some external reporter observing their activities and calling apples, apples. The distinction between religion and culture, or lack thereof, made for an early controversy among Christian missionaries: were "the ceremonial rites of Confucianism and ancestor veneration were primarily social and political in nature and could be practiced by converts" or not?
Dragons are significant enough to change the architecture of buildings. My understanding that the apartment building depicted at the link below was not originally designed with a hole for the dragon residing on the hill behind it. I don't know how to measure people's beliefs, but if the reasoning behind a very expensive change is "dragons," then 'thar be dragons.'
