It is possible that Hilditch asked Chinese residents in Manchester to assist him with the services but had been rejected, but their omission is more likely down to the fact he wanted to cement his status as the authority of the temple. By donning Chinese robes, Hilditch added a heightened sense of reality to the display than would have been created if he had worn English clothes, while simultaneously increasing his supposed authority; he played both museum guide and Buddhist Priest.

Hilditch’s understanding of China seems to parallel that of the Protestant missionaries who saw Buddhist rituals as ‘a kind of absurd theatre, in which a nation of actors engaged in stylized fictions full of sounds and fury but signifying nothing’ Given Hilditch’s slippery relationship with the truth, it is difficult to discern whether even he believed in his temple’s accuracy. However, his sense of entitlement to construct the temple and claim its authenticity does suggest that he had interiorized the British sense of authority over Chinese culture.