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NOTES FOR A VISIT TO THE GOVERNMENT CEMETERY AT HAPPY VALLEY
CARL T. SMITH
The writer of an article entitled “Lest We Forget” published in the South China Morning Post 6 June 1913 describes the Colonial Cemetery as "an extremely beautiful spot, for all around is to be seen the rugged grandeur of nature's own handiwork; the free elemental play of stream and sky and mountain a truly wonderful background, and a magnificent object lesson of the infinitude and vastness of things". The description might be viewed as a western counterpart of Chinese feng shui. Whether the site of the cemetery and its graves really conform to proper feng shui principles must be left to a qualified geomancer.
A Chinese view of the proper aspect of a cemetery was expressed by Mr. Lau Chu-pak, a leader of the Chinese community, in a discussion concerning cemeteries at a meeting of the Sanitary Board in 1909. He quoted Confucius as saying that burial places should not resemble pleasure gardens, rather they should be in harmony with those who weep and mourn. (Weekly Press 17 April 1909)
The first Protestant burial ground
The Colonial Cemetery, now called the Government Cemetery in Happy Valley, was opened in 1845. Previously Europeans were buried at a Protestant and a Roman Catholic Cemetery which adjoined each other in Wanchai. They were located on the slope of the hill above Queen's Road East extending upward to the vicinity of the present Kennedy Road, in the general area of the present Sun, Moon, Star and St. Francis Streets.
The earliest date of burial on the forty-eight monuments removed from the old Protestant Cemetery to the Colonial
* 15th March, 1984