[
    {
        "id": 212584,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1991",
        "page_number": 138,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "118\n\nThis obelisk, now in the Government Cemetery, stood then at the junction of Queen's Road East and Leighton Road. It commemorates officers and men of HMS Vestal who, in 1847, were killed, drowned or died in Hong Kong.\n\nCremation\n\nIn this study cremation took place two days after the funeral service because the previous day was inauspicious. Only close family members sat in the hearse accompanying the body to Cape Collinson Crematorium. The ceremony was simple. All relations made three bows, each of the three sisters poured one cup of rice wine which was placed together with food on the altar. The dead person's 'spirit shrine', made of rattan and paper, was burned. The family then crossed back over the Harbour to the Buddhist Hall to pay respects. There a group of lay nuns, who addressed one another as 'brother' (兄弟), chanted mantras.\n\nAlthough until AD 1370 bodies of Buddhist laity were frequently cremated3, the Han Chinese have a long tradition of burial with human remains returning to nature and affecting feng shui. The body should remain in contact with earth, it is traditionally believed. The final resting place should have good soil, luxuriant trees and grass. This belief is still strong in some quarters. To beat an April 1st, 1993, deadline, after which all corpses in Jiangsu Province have been cremated, 40 old people committed mass suicide in March so that they could receive a traditional burial.\n\nBurial has been considered more desirable by Han Chinese than the custom of many Muslim Chinese minority groups with bodies being eaten by vultures.32 The Book of Changes (I Ching) records that in primitive society Han Chinese left their dead in the wilderness, covered with leaves. Later, when they came to believe souls went on to another world, they began to protect bodies by placing them in graves.\n\n34\n\n33\n\nHong Kong, like China, has for several years campaigned in favour of cremation. Feudal superstitions have had to be overcome. In 1958/59, only 1.65 per cent of corpses were cremated. In 1989/90, the figure stood at 70 per cent. Because of chronic land shortage there are few cemeteries in Hong Kong where the body can rest in perpetuity. When buried they are usually exhumed after six years (times have varied from five to 10 years). The bones (designated yang, but flesh is yin)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214570,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1998",
        "page_number": 428,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "397\n\nas, post 1945.\n\nOne would expect, bearing in mind that many of Hong Kong's records were destroyed during the Japanese occupation (1941-1945), that these last two would be the easiest of the seven to trace. The help of the staff of the Urban Services Department was again sought. They searched the registers of the Jewish and Muslim Cemeteries, and further searches were again made in the Hong Kong Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery. But still we were unable to locate the two missing graves. A search was also made by Mr Derek Cheng, cemetery attendant at the Stanley Cemetery, but without success.\n\nIn addition a search was made in the Government Public Records Office, at Kwun Tong, for the birth certificates of Knox and Moss. Again we were unsuccessful. A discussion was also held with an Immigration Department Officer in the Government Births and Deaths Registry. He informed me that unless more information could be obtained, including places of death (for example a hospital), it was extremely unlikely that the death certificates of the two could be traced. Search fees of HK$140.00 for the first and HK$680.00 for a second more general search would be charged for each person. This information has been passed back through BACSA to the relatives.\n\nThe seven dead persons were all British and it is therefore unlikely that they would have been buried in the delightful little Chiu Yuen (meaning bright and faraway) Eurasian Cemetery, on Hong Kong Island, or in one of the many Chinese cemeteries. Although cremation was rare until more recently (in 1958/59 only 1.65 per cent of corpses in Hong Kong were cremated1), it is just possible these two dead persons' bodies were disposed of in this way. Their ashes could have been scattered (very few are in Hong Kong) or placed in an urn, in a niche, in a columbarium. It is even more unlikely that the bones of these persons, being Europeans, would be placed in an ossuary. Again, it is unlikely that either of the two would have been buried on the China Mainland (although Moss, having died 'post 1945, could have been) after the People's Republic Government came to power in 1949.\n\nIt should be mentioned that all four graves that we found were located in pleasant surroundings close to, or under trees. Again the two",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215519,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 296,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "246\n\ncould be traced in regard to this burial ground, though the noted Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune, who visited Hong Kong between 1843 and 1846, recorded:\n\nBefore leaving China [1846], I had occasion to visit this spot of ground (the old barrack area in West Point), the grave of many a brave soldier. A fine road31 leading round the island…passed through the place where they had been buried. Many of their coffins were exposed to vulgar gaze, and the bones of the poor fellows lay scattered about on the public highway no one could find fault with the road having been made there, but if it was necessary to uncover the coffins, common decency required that they should be buried again…38\n\nOther Early Cemeteries\n\nHong Kong's initial progress as an entrepôt was slow, nevertheless, by the 1850s, Hong Kong's position as a trading centre had gradually been consolidated. Before the emergence of a recognizable Chinese merchant class in the later half of the 19th century, foreign merchants, the bulk of whom were British, dominated the local political and economic scene. Nevertheless, some of the most prominent and best remembered foreign traders came neither from Europe nor North America, but from the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. These included the Parsees, the Indians and the Jews.\n\n39\n\n40\n\nA Parsee (or Zoroastrian) cemetery in Happy Valley was granted as early as 1852, and the first grave was erected there in 1858. The Jewish Cemetery, located south-east of Wong Nai Chung Village and near some paddy fields, was first laid out in 1855 when the first of the Jewish merchants from Guangzhou settled in Hong Kong. The lease for land for a cemetery was granted in 1857, the year of the first burial.42 As the community was not large, the number of burials was small. By the end of the 19th century, burials were limited to about sixty. The cemetery was described as 'neglected' in an 1890's tourist guide.44\n\nThe Muslim cemetery in Happy Valley had been deeded to the community in 1870, and a mosque with rooms for burial preparations was added. Prior to this, a Mohammedan cemetery, located at roughly the present site of St. Stephen's Girls College along Park Road, can be found in an 1863 map.46\n\nHowever, no further information on this",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215520,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 297,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "247\n\ncemetery could be traced. The cemetery was probably created for the early Muslim military community. It was in the 1880s that a Hindu Cemetery was founded in Happy Valley, with the earliest graves dated to 1888.47\n\nThere had also been a small French Mission Cemetery erected in Pokfulam near the Bethanie, a retreat for retired or sick French Fathers (Mission Étrangères), in the later part of the 19th century; however, further details regarding the erection of this cemetery are not known yet.48\n\nChinese Cemeteries in the 19th Century\n\nA great influx of Chinese immigrants occurred soon after the British arrived in Hong Kong, though the growth was uneven. By the 1850s, in the wake of massive upheavals as the Tai Ping forces swept through wide areas of southern and central China, the Chinese population of Hong Kong grew rapidly. From 1853-1855, the numbers rose from 39,017 to 72,607.49\n\nBetween the 1860s and the 1880s, the population steadily increased and Hong Kong was subjected to serious overcrowding. In 1865, the population totalled 125,504 and in 1881 the number was 160,404. During this period, public health emerged as one of the main problems.\n\nBefore 1856, burial grounds for the Chinese had not been properly regulated. Not unexpectedly, Chinese burials were not permitted in the Colonial Cemetery in the early days,51 they were not even allowed to enter the cemetery at least until 1885.52 A direct result of the increase of population and the corresponding increase in mortality among the Chinese was the studding of all hillsides and slopes on the island with graves, which caused ‘certain Nuisances which the Laws hitherto in force have failed effectually to prevent.’53\n\n54\n\nOne such popular Chinese burial ground was located on the west of the Tai Ping Shan district, along a certain Fan Mo or Cemetery Street,5 upon which the Tung Wah Hospital was later to be built.\n\nThe surveyor general had the following entry in his report in 1856, probably referring to the burial ground at Fan Mo Street:",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215533,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 310,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "260\n\nJapanese invasion, steps could not be taken until after the war.\n\n177\n\n178\n\nIn July 1949 the first of such cemeteries, the Sandy Ridge (Urn) Cemetery near Lo Wu was approved, and burials commenced on 9th April 1950. In the financial year of 1950-51, the number of reburials (including temporary storage awaiting cremation) at Sandy Ridge (Urn) Cemetery was as high as 65,558.\n\n180\n\n181\n\nSE\n\nThis was followed by the commissioning of the most important post-war cemetery, the Wo Hop Shek Cemetery, which was authorized on 27th February 1950. Burials in this cemetery commenced on 1 December in the same year. The cemetery was served by a branch of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, and coffins could be transported to the cemetery by railway hearse. In the financial year of 1951-52, 16,054 coffins were transported to the cemetery by the railway hearse.\n\n182\n\nAppendix 1\n\nName of Cemetery\n\n  \n    Name of Cemetery\n    Location\n    Year\n    Remarks\n  \n  \n    Protestant Burial Ground\n    Wan Chai\n    1841\n    Closed 1845, last graves removed 1889\n  \n  \n    Catholic Burial Ground\n    Wan Chai\n    1842\n    \n  \n  \n    *Colonial/Hong Kong Cemetery\n    Happy Valley\n    1845\n    \n  \n  \n    *Stanley Cemetery\n    Stanley\n    \n    Earliest graves: 1843. Closed c. 1870, re-opened during the war. Renamed Stanley Military Cemetery after WWII.\n  \n  \n    West Point Burial Ground\n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    St. Michael Catholic Cemetery\n    Happy Valley\n    1848\n    \n  \n  \n    *Parsee/Zoroastrian Cemetery\n    Happy Valley\n    1852\n    \n  \n  \n    *Jewish Cemetery\n    Mid-Levels\n    1857\n    Appeared in a 1863 map. Details not known.\n  \n  \n    Muslim/Mohammedan Cemetery\n    Happy Valley\n    \n    Appeared by 1850s. Details not known.\n  \n  \n    *Muslim/Mohammedan Cemetery\n    Po Yan Street (Cemetery Street)\n    1870\n    \n  \n  \n    Chinese Burial Ground\n    Yau Ma Tei\n    1871\n    \n  \n  \n    Chinese Cemetery\n    Mount Davis\n    1882\n    \n  \n  \n    Chinese Christian Cemetery\n    Chai Wan\n    1882\n    \n  \n\n183\n\n184",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215536,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 313,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "Shum Wan Cemetery \n\nAberdeen \n\n1938 \n\nThere had been another \n\n*New Kin Inland Lot No. 2662 \n\n(St. Raphael's) Catholic Cemetery War Emergency Cemeteries *Sai Wan Military/War Cemetery Prison Cemetery \n\n*Sandy Ridge Cemetery \n\n*Wo Hop Shek Cemetery \n\n*Cheung Chau Catholic Cemetery \n\n*Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery \n\n*Chinese Permanent Cemetery Cape Collinson \n\n*Muslim Cemetery \n\n*Buddhist Cemetery \n\n*Military Cemetery \n\n*Chinese Permanent Cemetery \n\n263 \n\ncemetery in Shum Wan in \n\n1920s, details of which is \n\nnot known. Removal of all \n\nurns was ordered 1949. \n\nEarliest graves: 1941. \n\nPiper's Hill \n\n1941-45 \n\nRefer to the article. \n\nCape Collinson 1947 Stanley \n\nLo Wu \n\n1947 \n\n1949 \n\nWo Hop Shek \n\n1950 \n\nCheung Chau \n\nEarliest graves: 1957. \n\nCape Collinson \n\nEarliest graves: 1960. \n\nEarliest graves: 1963. \n\nCape Collinson 1963 \n\nCape Collinson \n\nEarliest graves: 1964. \n\nCape Collinson 1967 \n\nTseung Kwan O 1989 \n\n* Cemeteries still known to be in existence. \n\nAppendix 2 \n\n1. Distribution of lots at Sandy Ridge Cemetery \n\nCoffin section: \n\n1. General \n\n2. Roman Catholic \n\n3. Little Sisters of the Poor \n\n4. Tung Wah \n\nUrn section: \n\n1. General 2. Tung Wah 3. Chiu Chow \n\n4. Yan Ping \n\n5. Chung Shan \n\n6. Hok Shan \n\n7. Sun Wui \n\n8. Tsang Shing 9. Fukien",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]