[ { "id": 204352, "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-1961", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nORASHKB and author \n\n116 \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\nnearly 10,000 coffins, urns and containers. The accommodation ranges from single rooms, where one or more coffins rest on trestles, to larger rooms holding hundreds of coffins, together with exhumed remains in a variety of receptacles, e.g. earthenware urns, rattan baskets, wooden boxes and even second-hand tin containers. In some cases, all trace of the relatives of the deceased has been lost and it is proposed to re-inter such remains in a special Tung Wah plot at the Sandy Ridge Cemetery, to which further reference will presently be made.\n\nA clear pattern is now emerging, whereby Hong Kong has almost ceased to be a transit centre for the conveyance of deceased Chinese to their native place. The next best alternative, both for overseas dead and Chinese residents of Hong Kong itself, is to bury in Hong Kong instead, though that is not to imply that local cemeteries are doing a brisk business in snapping up overseas trade.\n\nIn examining the details of current burial procedure, a distinction must be drawn between the urban areas and the New Territories. In the congested urban areas, where land is needed for development and health measures assume greater importance, there is not the same freedom in choice of burial grounds. Relatives must decide whether to bury the dead in a private cemetery, with higher fees, or in a public cemetery, with lower fees and compulsory exhumation of remains after a period of years.\n\nTaking the urban areas first, let us trace the events of a typical funeral. Unlike the earlier traditional habits of mainland China, where preparations for burial were largely carried out by members of the family, the current practice in Hong Kong is for the relatives, on death occurring in their midst, at once to call in an undertaker or someone from a funeral parlour. The undertaker provides a coffin, encoffins the body and conveys it thus to a cemetery for burial, but he is debarred by law from bringing dead bodies on to his own business premises. A funeral parlour on the other hand has wider scope. Its staff will enter the home of the deceased and remove the body to the parlour, either in a basket-woven container coloured silver, blue or yellow, or on a plain canvas stretcher. The advantage of using a funeral parlour instead of an undertaker lies in the fact that, with the body actually held temporarily on the premises of the parlour, it is possible there to carry out funeral rites which would be otherwise inconvenient where an undertaker conveyed the encoffined body direct from the home to the cemetery.\n\nChinese in Hong Kong dislike holding a dead body overnight in the private home. They much prefer its immediate removal after death. Neighbours too are far from happy at the thought of death in the near vicinity, nor in earlier days used they to be\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204359, "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-1961", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n123\n\nto clear the graves privately in more than half the cases. The balance is left to Government to clear. The deduction might be drawn that, although there may well be relatives still at hand in Hong Kong, they accept the Government service in clearance as perfectly adequate for the purpose and as a useful means of saving themselves expense.\n\nEvery year, in addition to Chinese dead mentioned above, the bodies of nearly 10,000 paupers are left to Government to dispose of. The term \"pauper\" does not imply that the deceased were homeless and abandoned. Most of the deaths occur in charitable institutes and hospitals. In most cases, there were relatives available but for one reason or another, usually economic, they preferred not to claim the body, being satisfied that the free burial (at the Sandy Ridge Cemetery, Lo Wu) and subsequent exhumation provided by Government would be sufficient to meet changed conditions.\n\nWhere possible, attempts are made at public Chinese cemeteries to meet burial customs. Facilities are provided at the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, in the form of special trains with reduced fares for relatives; crowd control; temporary latrines, etc. Trees and plants with flowers in the traditional mourning colours are planted, e.g. yellow allamanda, white spider lilies, purple thunbergia, white and yellow frangipanni.\n\nIt must be emphasized that this brief description of current Chinese burial customs in Hong Kong represents no more than the observed practice at a particular point of time. Custom is a living body that changes gradually from generation to generation. It would therefore be unwise to assume that all these customs will survive. The impact of congestion, lack of burial space and improving social conditions in Hong Kong may well cause further changes. In particular, the proposed official encouragement of cremation as a means of disposal of the dead may do much to upset the current burial pattern, although it will follow the Buddhist practice more closely. The basic factor seems to be that Hong Kong Chinese are not so much concerned with the means of disposal of the dead as with being able to pinpoint the eventual resting place of the remains of the deceased, whether in the form of bones or ashes. Exhumation, as such, seems to play no significant part in the process except as a practical means of reducing the physical bulk of the deceased to proportions that will either fit into a funerary urn or below a horseshoe grave. Cremation, therefore, which serves the same practical purpose as exhumation in reducing bulk, should equally prove unobjectionable to Hong Kong Chinese, backed as it is by Buddhist belief. In short, one may expect that within a generation cremation may largely replace burial and exhumation as a means of customary disposal of Chinese dead in Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "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 }, { "id": 215552, "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": 329, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "279\n\n167 HKGG Notice 725 of 16th September 1947.\n\n168 Present Wong Chuk Hang Road.\n\n169 HKGG Notice 721 of 16th September 1947.\n\n170 Present Chai Wan Road.\n\n171 HKGG Notice 720 of 16th September 1947.\n\n172\n\nReport of the Urban Council and Sanitary Department for the financial year 1st April, 1948-31st March, 1949, p. 29.\n\n173 The cemetery was later renamed 'Sai Wan War Cemetery'. This cemetery was and still is managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. There is another military cemetery located just below Sai Wan War Cemetery. Established in 1967, the new military cemetery is not related to Sai Wan War Cemetery, nor the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.\n\n174 This was the pre-war Chai Wan Cemetery, not to be confused with those established in the area in the early 1960s.\n\n175 HKGG Notice 214 of 13th March 1947.\n\n176 HKGG Notice 381 of 13 May 1947.\n\n177 Annual Departmental Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the financial year 1950-51, p. 11.\n\n178 Later regazetted as Sandy Ridge Cemetery and Sandy Ridge (Urn) Cemetery in 1950.\n\n179 Annual Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the year ended the 31st March, 1950, p. 8.\n\n180 Annual Departmental Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the financial year 1950-51, p. 38.\n\n181 Annual Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the year ended the 31st March, 1950, p. 8.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215606, "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": 383, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "333\n\nThis paper focuses on the material objects of cemeteries: grave forms and furnishings. We looked in some detail at a new private grave in Junk Bay Cemetery, at the grave in the Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery (CPC) of the founder of what is now a Hong Kong-based sub-lineage, at a columbarium niche in the CPC older columbarium in Cape Collinson Cemetery, at a symbolic grave, and finally at a charitable grave, the last two both in the Sandy Ridge Cemetery. We pointed out that in Chinese culture, death is regarded as polluting; and that landscapes of death are regarded as potentially powerful, and are avoided except at festivals or on other appropriate occasions.\n\nThe paper was written for the very specialised Journal of the American Association for Gravestone Studies. Americans have for decades been fascinated by gravestones. Is this because it's a settler society, much of whose history is told in its graveyards and cemeteries? If so, it's an interesting cultural contrast that there isn't the same public acknowledgement of the contribution that graveyards and cemeteries make to clarifying the identity of Hong Kong as a community as there is to the parallel contribution that the same type of spaces make regarding the identity of American communities. In both places, those who now reside in cemeteries and columbaria are, for the most part, immigrants. Note that one of the USA's most respected human geographers, Wilbur Zelinsky, has written a couple of well-quoted papers on American cemeteries.\n\nWhere Chinese grave forms are concerned, Eddie Chow made an unexpected find in a bookshop while preparing this paper: a book on the different types of grave shapes in southern China: Bin He, Jiang Zhe Han Zu Sung Zong Wen Hua (The Death and Burial Culture of the Han Nationality in Jiangsu and Zhejiang), Beijing, 1995. The scarcity of such material implies that the Chinese awe of death may well be hindering research into a field that is potentially of deep cultural significance in Chinese society.\n\nTeather, E.K. (2000). High rise homes for the ancestors: cremation in Hong Kong, Geographical Review 89(3): 409-430.\n\nThe decision in the late 1950s to encourage Hong Kong residents to consider cremation rather than coffin burial, and the gradual acceptance of the policy over the succeeding decades, is intriguing. Over ninety per cent of Hong Kongers are cremated now, if we include", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215607, "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": 384, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "334\n\ncremation after a few years in a coffin grave. This paper concentrates on columbaria in municipal cemeteries in Hong Kong, and contrasts the conservative designs of the public sector with the more expressive solutions of private providers. It contains the statistics about numbers of 'cremains' stored in niche walls and columbaria that I had obtained from cemetery managers, whose co-operation was invaluable. The statistics should be regarded as indicative rather than precise.\n\nDeath has to be planned for as much as life. Storing the dead is a sensitive issue, for the family as well as the state. The worldwide story of columbaria through the ages is one waiting to be told, although sporadic information is to be found in the key texts on cemetery history such as James Curl's A Celebration of Death (1993) and Silent Cities (K.T. Jackson and C.J. Vergara, 1989). Columbaria pose an intriguing challenge to contemporary architects and some of the resulting designs can make for striking and imposing contemporary landscape artefacts. Compared with cemeteries, columbaria are much more focused and inward looking. Cemeteries have the advantage of being outdoors, with all the distractions of the fresh air, the sky, distant views, maybe trees and even some landscaping - though this is rare in Hong Kong, an exception being sections of the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley. Landscaping was a fundamental part of the design of new private cemeteries that I visited in Guangzhou.\n\nHow will cyberspace supplement and perhaps supplant the material memorial space of cemeteries and columbaria? Cemetery managers I interviewed in Guangzhou were already thinking about this.\n\nTeather, E.K. (1998). Themes from complex landscapes: Chinese cemeteries and columbaria in Hong Kong, Australian Geographical Studies 36(1): 21-36.\n\nIn this paper, I tried to break away from the straightforward description and painstaking attempt to understand the social and belief systems that underpin cemetery layout and ritual. I tried to capture a little of the contrasting landscapes, symbolisms and moods of four of Hong Kong's cemeteries: Diamond Hill Urn Cemetery (1931); Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery (1915); sprawling Sandy Ridge Cemetery on the border with Guangdong Province (1950); and St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Lai Chi Kok (1946).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]