The Fire Pig is regarded as the most fortuitous of all five pig years, full of abundance and success.

This is a significant event for Chinese people all over the world. Yesterday I was traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh where my parents live - this overland journey usually takes 2.5 hours - yesterday it took 7! The roads were chaotic and the floods did not help either - everyone was trying to get home for the evening meal which signifies the start of the festival.

This month, I would like to look at another dimension of the Cultural Mirror - religious and secular. In religious cultures, religion is intertwined into everyday living - it's embedded into the fabric of life, whereas in secular cultures, work and religion are separate.

For example, in the Middle East - Friday is the Holy Day and is part of the weekend. Also, during the month of Ramadan - the fasting month, operating hours in lots of businesses are altered to cater for the starting and breaking of the daily fast. Conversely, in secular cultures, religion is considered personal i.e. what you believe and how you worship is your issue. In addition, there would be people in secular cultures who would identify themselves as agnostic or atheists, which would be rare in religious cultures.

We tend to be born into our religion and very few of us actually take the time to study or understand another faith.

There is a reasonably large Muslim community with a local mosque in the suburb down the road from mine in Melbourne. After the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, it was a difficult time for Muslims who were trying to deal with the anger and backlash from non-Muslims. Many of them were being harassed.

At this time, our local Reverend Ron Browning gathered a group of people to help alleviate the situation. I was part of this group. One of the things we did was take a number of Christians to the local mosque to have a conversation with the local imam (religious leader) to help understand the religion.

The following month, a group of Muslims came to the local church to learn about Christian beliefs. Five years on, this has grown to a monthly multi-faith dialogue group meeting which looks at how to build better understanding and cooperation in our local religious communities. It's been amazing to see what people have learnt and have been willing to share about their different faiths.