[ { "id": 204358, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n122\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\ntouch the dead is to run the risk of becoming infected by an aura of ill-luck (sz yan fung) whereby all the misfortunes of the deceased will be transmitted.\n\nAmongst fishermen fear of the dead and of ill-luck is particularly pronounced. At Tai O on the north-western end of Lantau, fisherfolk on their death bed may be taken from their boats to die in a special house maintained for the purpose near the cemetery.\n\nDuring funeral processions in both the urban areas and the New Territories it is the practice to scatter different types of paper, representing money, along the route to the burial ground, particularly at cross-roads where traditionally malevolent spirits tend to congregate. It is hoped that in the confusion caused by the evil spirits grabbing the money the spirit of the deceased will be able to pass unscathed. The remainder of the paper money thrown out at points other than cross-roads is for the use of the spirit of the deceased in making his way back to his home three days after death (saam ch'iu ooi wan). In many homes, a corner in a hall or passage may be reserved for a tablet and memorial, to house the spirit on its return to the home. This return of the spirit may at first sight be difficult to reconcile with the belief that the spirit descends into hell. The answer is that according to Chinese belief each dead person has a number of spirits. The descent of one of these spirits into hell is often assisted at the burial by the scattering and burning of specially printed hell bank notes (meng t'ung chí paî), together with paper effigies of clothes, suit-cases, motor cars, steam ships, aeroplanes, etc., often of most elaborate and detailed construction.\n\nThe impact of crowded living conditions, economy and improved public health have had their gradual effect in changing the pattern of Hong Kong burial custom. Except for paupers, by far the greater proportion of Chinese dead from the urban areas (numbering some 10,000) are now buried in the public cemetery at Wo Hop Shek, near Fan Ling in the New Territories. Coffins may be conveyed by rail from Kowloon daily as a service included within the burial fees that are $5 or $15 according to size of coffin. Only some 20% of the coffins are carried to the cemetery by private hearses at the expense of the relatives. Of the balance brought by rail, not more than half are attended by relatives. It is obviously not possible in a public cemetery to site graves in accordance with individual interpretations of good fung shui. The fact that each coffin is simply allotted the next vacant space in the burial terrace is readily accepted, although it must be admitted that the majority of terraces are well up the hillside with a commanding view of distance and water. Similarly, when the routine six months' notice of intention to exhume remains from the coffin sections is given, it is unusual for relatives", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209823, "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-1983", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "60\n\n(f) Finally, in entering business or commerce, a man will frequently assume yet another name, “pit tsz” (筆子), for purposes of business only.\n\n(g) Apart from the milk name, proper name and school name, a girl will at marriage assume her husband's clan name in front of her own, e.g. HO Fung Ling (何鳳玲), on marrying TANG Man Lin (鄧文連), becomes TANG HO Fung Ling (鄧何鳳玲).\n\n(h) The reluctance of married women to reveal their full maiden name often leads them to leave off their final name and instead to add the suffix \"shi” (氏).\n\nNOTES\n\n1 The notes were later amended and in this amended form were put on a file (Ref1/477/54) which is now in the Public Records Office. The notes as given here represent the original form, with footnotes, introduction and minor amendments by the author (Hon. Ed.).\n\n* Wills, of whatever sort, were, whatever the legal position, very rare among New Territories villagers. I remember only one, of a wealthy Cantonese landowner.\n\n* I met such a case in Tai Po where the wife, fortunately, did not contest the husband's claim that she was not a virgin.\n\n* I must have come across up to half a dozen cases of sam p'o tsai, including two or three disputes where the girl refused to marry her intended groom. The groom's family did not attempt to force marriage, but were concerned about a formal separation. The groom's family had of course for some time received the free use of the girl's services as a household worker, and so could not validly demand compensation from the girl's natural parents. A sam p'o tsai is quite different to a mui tsai who was to all intents and purposes a slave girl. (Mui tsai were banned in Hong Kong before World War II.)\n\n* Up till the 1950's, huet chong graves were normally left untouched for 5 years, this being the period needed for bodies to decompose completely. But, from the 1950's onwards, bodies took longer to decompose, and 7 years is now the standard time. I know this, because from 1958-60 I was in the Urban Services Department in charge of disposal of the dead. I was also in the Urban Services Department from 1968-71, when again I was connected with this aspect. In those days, the coffin section at Wo Hop Shek cemetery used to be cleared every 5 years, but there were so many unfit graves that this period was extended to 7 years. The need for the longer period arose apparently from the wider use of antibiotics and other drugs which seem to have the effect of preserving bodies and which were then coming into much greater use.\n\nSee in general on Burial Customs the author's Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong, journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 1, 1960, pp 115-124.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "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": 215537, "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": 314, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "264\n\n10. Chekiang and Kiangsu\n\n11. Hopeh and Shantung\n\n12. Pentecostal\n\n13. Christian\n\n2. Distribution of lots at Wo Hop Shek Cemetery:\n\nCoffin section:\n\n1. General\n\n2. Chiu Chow\n\n3. Fukien\n\n4. Yan Ping\n\n5. Wai Hoi Wai\n\n6. Pentecostal\n\n7. 7th Day Adventists\n\nUrn section:\n\n1. General\n\n2. Chiu Chow\n\n3. Toi Shan\n\n4. Hoi Ping\n\n5. Ka Ying\n\n6. Tung Kwun\n\nThe very large number of indigenous villagers' burial sites/graveyards, some of considerable size, will not be dealt with in this study.\n\n2 Prior to 1926, Hong Kong's official spelling was 'Hongkong.' In September 1926, under instructions received from the Secretary of State for Colonies, 'Hong Kong' was adopted as the official form. See Hongkong Government Gazette (hereinafter HKGG) Notification 479 of 3 September 1926.\n\n3 The name of Wan Chai was not in use in the early 1840s, the area around the burial ground was described as 'that part of the town fronting upon Howwan Bay' in Friend of China of 19th May 1842.\n\n4\n\nOxley, D.H. (ed) (1979), Victoria Barracks 1842-1979. Hong Kong: Headquarters British Forces Hong Kong, p. 25.\n\n5 The barrack area of the present Hong Kong Park site.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215546, "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": 323, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "273\n\n* For instance, HKGG Notices 423 of 13th August 1920 and 44 of 4 February 1921. The old Kowloon Tong Village was located about the present Tai Hang Tung Recreation Ground site.\n\nHKGG Notice 369 of 16 July 1926.\n\n93 See Empson, p. 181.\n\n» HKGG Notice 540 of 23rd December 1921. Removal of some graves in Kowloon Tong Cemetery was ordered in 1924 for the laying out of roads and building sites, see HKGG Notices 366 of 20th June and 712 of 19th December 1924.\n\n95 HKGG Notice 936 of 30th September 1949.\n\nSI\n\n9 HKGG Notice 1020 of 1 September 1950.\n\n97 Around the present Wah Fu Estate area. The cemetery had also been referred to as MARK'in some government notices, e.g., HKGG Notices 420 of 18th July 1924 and 253 of 29th April 1927 etc.\n\n98 The road was later renamed Victoria Road.\n\n99 The origin of this early Kai Lung Wan Cemetery is not known yet.\n\n100 HKGG Notification 692 of 17th August 1906. Similar to Chai Wan Cemetery, a very large section of the Kai Lung Wan Cemetery was later under the management of the Tung Wah Hospital, the cemetery was called 'Tung Wah Hospital, Kai Lung Wan'. But the detail for this development is not known. In 1939, there were 10,679 interments in the Tung Wah section of the cemetery, see Annual Report of the Chairman Urban Council Hong Kong for the year 1939, p. M(1)17. Also, according to a 1951 stone inscription at the Chiu Chow section of the Wo Hop Shek Cemetery, another section of the Kai Lung Wan Cemetery was reserved for the Chiu Chow dead in about 1923.\n\n101 In a 1978 government map (HONG KONG STREETS & PLACES VOLUME 2: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE KOWLOON & THE NEW TERRITORES, p. 83), Tseung Loong Tin (Cheung Lung Tin) is referred to a hillside area between Lam Tin and Yau Tong.\n\n102 Cha Kwo Ling was one of the 'Four Hills' (194) villages in eastern Kowloon.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215549, "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": 326, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "276\n\n125 As late as the 1990, there was still a new burial.\n\n126 HKGG Notice 311 of 14th August 1914. According to a 1951 stone inscription at the Chiu Chow section of the Wo Hop Shek Cemetery, a section of this cemetery was reserved for the Chiu Chow dead in 1933. All graves of the 'Government or General section' of urn cemetery in the same cemetery were ordered to be removed in 1947, see HKGG Notice 743 of 19th September 1947.\n\n127 For instance, HKGG Notice 421 of 20th October 1922 and Notice 321 of 20th July 1923.\n\n128 HKGG Notice 797 of 14th October 1938. Removal of all urns in Shum Wan Cemetery was ordered in 1949, see HKGG Notice 936 of 30th September 1949.\n\n129 HKGG Notice 420 of 12th September 1919. The location of this cemetery is not mentioned in the notification and the site is not known at the moment.\n\n130 HKGG Notice 18 of 21 January 1921. The cemetery was to be split into three separate ones in 1930, see below.\n\n131 HKGG Notice 678 of 5th December 1924.\n\n132 HKGG Notice 439 of 3rd August 1928. A section of this cemetery still exists within the St. Joseph's Home for the Aged. As the whole piece of land has just been sold to a developer in February 2002, the cemetery may be cleared soon. See a local Chinese newspaper, The Economic Journal, 13 March 2002, p. 6. Information provided by the Rev. Carl T. Smith.\n\n134 HKGG Notice 400 of 27th June 1930.\n\n135 Fo Pang was the old name for the area around the present Wah Yan College site.\n\n136 A 1920 map, CO1047/455, as kept in the PRO at Kew, shows a European Cemetery near Tai Shek Ku, approximately the present Kowloon Hospital site, but not in the Fo Pang area. Further clarification is needed in regard to the relation between these two cemeteries. Kowloon Cemetery No. I was closed in 1933, see HKGG Notice 799 of 15th December 1933.\n\n137 Removal of all graves and urns in this cemetery was ordered in 1948, see HKGG", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215603, "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": 380, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "330\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe purpose of this short paper is to introduce the research that I have carried out since 1995 on deathspaces, first of all in Hong Kong and later in Guangzhou and Seoul. My interest in this topic arose from a visit that I made to Wo Hop Shek Cemetery at Chung Yeung, 1995. I had just arrived in Hong Kong to join my husband, David, for what was meant to be a year's leave of absence from my position as a geographer at the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia. I needed to find a nice, tidy topic of research that I could undertake in a few months of field work while in Hong Kong.\n\nWe were taken aback by the festival mood at Wo Hop Shek. It was a sunny day. There were endless streams of cheerful family groups going up and down the steep road. Stalls selling flowers, food and sunhats, or marketing tombstones and urns, were staffed by smiling men and women. There was a strong but low key police presence. Clouds of pungent incense floated around the columbarium, and ash fluttered down, settling on our shoulders. Late in the afternoon, flames crackled somewhere out of sight up in the hills and a fire engine raced up the road. No-one seemed to mind our presence or even notice us except to offer an occasional courteous nod.\n\nI realised that this was a unique manifestation of time-space and one I wanted to know a lot more about. Fortunately, my time in Hong Kong has not been limited to that first year! When you begin researching issues relating to death in Chinese culture, you go right to the heart of beliefs and customs. I feel fortunate that I chose such an intriguing and fundamentally important topic.\n\nIn the research I eventually undertook, I concentrated on Hong Kong's municipal cemeteries, provided by public and private organisations, and not on rural graves and graveyards. This made sense because of my background as a geographer teaching on a degree programme in Urban and Regional Planning. There are sensitive and important issues involved in planning for the provision of space for the dead. As a geographer rather than an anthropologist, I have been more interested in broad spatial issues than in the practices associated with funerals and burial. However, this does not mean that I see place as a passive object. Indeed, place is dynamic: it is a context for the activities", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]