A Review of Development of Cemeteries in Hong Kong

Voices from the Stones

Ko Tim-keung

Some scholars had described cemeteries as ‘memory palace’, which provokes and perpetuates memories of various culturally, socially and personally significant concepts and facts. Cemeteries not only testify to the general human need to pay tribute to the dead, but they also testify, in their architectonic forms, to the significance of divination.

The Chinese government has paid the most serious attention to landscape of death. After 1949, isolated graves, grave clusters and of entire burial grounds, including almost all foreign cemeteries, had been cleared or removed. Cemeteries were regarded as not only occupying valuable agricultural land but also epitomizing superstitious beliefs that potentially obstructed the modernization of the nation and of its values.

But the ‘memory palace’ of traditional ancestor veneration survives in Hong Kong. So do a number of cemeteries erected for foreigners – Europeans, Parsees, Indians, Jews and Muslims. Most of these cemeteries have a long history, dating back to the early days of colonial rule. However, study of landscapes of death in Hong Kong has received relatively little attention amongst local researchers and historians. Not surprisingly, none of the historic cemeteries are under any form of legislative protection.

The heritage significance of these cemeteries is very great, and calls for public acknowledgment and for recognition in the form of appropriate policies. Many cemetery sites in Hong Kong have great heritage significance not only because of their site characteristics, but also because grave memorials, however humble and dilapidated, all can contribute something to the understanding of the society of Hong Kong and its people in the past. It is indeed a vanishing archive which should be carefully recorded before it is lost forever.

Cemeteries still in use/existence

Name of Cemetery Location Year Remarks

1. Colonial/Hong Kong Cemetery Happy Valley 1845 Earliest grave: 1841. 2. Stanley Cemetery Stanley Earliest grave: 1843. Closed c.1870, re-opened during the war. Renamed Stanley Military Cemetery after WWII. 3. St. Michael Catholic Cemetery Happy Valley 1848 4. Parsee/Zoroastrian Cemetery Happy Valley 1852 5. Jewish Cemetery Happy Valley 1857 6. Muslim/Mohammedan Cemetery Happy Valley 1870 7. Hindu Cemetery Happy Valley Earliest grave recorded: 1888 8. Chinese Christian Cemetery Pokfulam 1882 9. Caroline Hill/Mount Caroline Cemetery So Kon Po 1891 10. Chiu Yuen Cemetery Pokfulam Earliest grave recorded: 1892. 11. Chinese Christian Cemetery Kowloon City 1904 (New Kowloon Cemetery No.1) 12. Chinese Permanent Cemetery Aberdeen 1913 13. Race Course Fire Memorial and So Kon Po Completed 1922. Cemetery 14. Castle Peak Christian Cemetery Castle Peak Earliest grave recorded: 1928 15. New Kowloon Cemetery No. 5 Diamond Hill 1931 Possibly part of present Diamond Hill Urn Cemetery 16. Sung Him Tong Sung Chan Wui Fan Ling 1931 Kei Tuk Kau Fan Cheung 17. Cheung Chau Chinese Christian Cheung Chau 1931 Cemetery 18. Tao Fung Shan Christian Cemetery Sha Tin Earliest grave recorded: 1931 19. Tai O Cemetery Tai O 1932 20. Sai Kung Catholic Cemetery Sai Kung 1934 21. Chinese Permanent Cemetery Tsuen Wan 1935 22. New Kowloon Inland Lot No. 2662 Piper’s Hill Earliest grave recorded: 1941. (St. Raphael’s) Catholic Cemetery 23. Sai Wan Military/War Cemetery Cape Collinson 1947 24. Prison Cemetery Stanley 1947 25. Sandy Ridge Cemetery Lo Wu 1949 26. Wo Hop Shek Cemetery Wo Hop Shek 1950 27. Cheung Chau Catholic Cemetery Cheung Chau Earliest grave recorded: 1957. 28. Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery Cape Collinson Earliest grave recorded: 1960. Also graves from the French Mission Cemetery in Pokfulam have been re-erected there. 29. Chinese Permanent Cemetery Cape Collinson Earliest grave recorded: 1963. 30. Muslim Cemetery Cape Collinson 1963 31. Buddhist Cemetery Cape Collinson Earliest grave recorded: 1964. 32. Military Cemetery Cape Collinson 1967 33. Chinese Permanent Cemetery Tseung Kwan O 1989

Some Examples of Graves/Memorials

Hong Kong Cemetery

Above: Engraving from the Illustrated London News (Jan 14, 1854)

St. Michael Catholic Cemetery

Above: Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Cape Collinson

Jewish Cemetery

Parsee Cemetery

Mohammedan Cemetery, Happy Valley

Above: Muslim Cemetery, Cape Collinson

Chiu Yuen Cemetery

Stanley Military Cemetery

Sai Wan War Cemetery

Chinese Christian Cemetery, Pokfulam

Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery

Diamond Hill Urn Cemetery

Wo Hop Shek Cemetery

Sandy Ridge Cemetery

Charitable Graves

Above: Lai Chi Kok (Tung Wah Hospital & Kim Sin Tong, Guangzhou)

Above: Clear Water Bay Road (Lok Sin Tong)

Race Course Fire Memorial and Cemetery