Just In Time For Halloween...

I took a long stroll around Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley the other day. It's a place I'm always strangely drawn to. I don't know why, but cemeteries have always held an ineffable sort of appeal for me. I find them peaceful, poignant and downright fascinating, and this one is among the most interesting I've ever explored.

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it would be appropriate to take you on a sort of quasi-virtual walking tour of this spellbinding place.

Ready? Here we go...

Located on Wong Nai Chung Road, just across the street from the massive Happy Valley Racecourse, the burial ground formerly known as Colonial Cemetery is not just the final resting place of thousands of local and foreign Hong Kong residents; it's also a veritable history book of the city itself, with every stone a piece of the massive jigsaw puzzle that is Hong Kong.

A small chapel here dates to 1845, making it the oldest colonial building in town and, thus, a Grade I historic structure. The door was unlocked on my most recent visit, so although I had been told it was closed to the public, I ducked inside for a few moments to have a look around.

Back outside, the earliest graves date to this same period, and the timeworn, unkempt tombstones conjure up images of a forgotten burial ground nestled behind a quaint church in New England, or perhaps Olde England.

Over the nearly two hours I spent combing the ten hectares of grounds, I encountered only three living souls. A gweilo couple, dog in tow, hustled past me as I walked down one of the main pathways. And a lone watchman informed me about twenty minutes in advance that the cemetery would be closing at six o'clock; I assured him I had no intention of getting locked in overnight.

My favorite thing to do in places like this is to read the inscriptions on the grave stones, and to envision the lives and stories of the people interred beneath them. And this particular cemetery hides a wealth of fodder for the imagination, owing to Hong Kong's nature as a bustling crown colony during the infancy of the colonial administration.

Some big names from Hong Kong history are buried here. Sir Catchick Paul Chater, who has several streets, a garden and an office tower named in his honor, was born in Calcutta and became one of the most important and influential businessman in Hong Kong's early days.

And Sir Robert Ho Tung, a prominent Eurasian businessman, rests with his wife below a pair of well maintained, large marble crosses.

A few of the stones list causes of death that would be hard to imagine in a modern day cemetery:

"Sacred/To the memory/Of/William Killick/Drowned/15th December 1895."

"Thos. Boulden/Who Was Accidentally Killed/At the Great Fire/At Hongkong/On November 29th 1867."

 And "William Stanley Seymour/Who met his death/By falling from aloft/February 21st 1885."

One memorial stands proudly in memory of the crew members killed when a French destroyer, Fronde, vanished during a typhoon in 1906. Typhoons nowadays are a cause for minor celebration here, a day off from work and an excuse to visit the bars. This memorial serves as a grim reminder that in the past, they posed a very clear and present danger to human life in the city.

There is even one stone marking the grave of Olive Batley, who "died on duty" during the "Cathay Pacific Airways crash on Mount Butler" in February of 1949. Olive's portrait, depicted via bas-relief, smiles gingerly over the gently sloping grounds, eternally twenty-four years old. I wasn't even aware there had been such an accident, but it's another example of a Hong Kong story waiting to be discovered here.

As the skies grew darker, I explored a more remote section, and stumbled upon the tomb of Joseph Zelley who "passed into rest" after a short illness at the Royal Navy Hospital on November 24, 1886. It hit me a moment later that this date was exactly a century before my own birth.

Near his tomb was a memorial erected by a mourning husband in memory of his deceased young bride. His name, James Waddell, was significantly larger than hers, Elizabeth Jonds, which I couldn't quite understand.

There was one stone I had read about but couldn't seem to locate. And with darkness descending upon the Valley, I had all but given up hope of finding it when I spied it out of the corner of my eye. With minutes to spare, I did an about-face and retraced my steps up a small hill to find the final resting place of James Walsh. The inscription reads: "Who Departed Life/15 September 1868," the accidentally omitted "This" furtively inserted into its proper place, as if the engraver had hoped nobody would notice.

Rushing back towards the exit, I checked my phone and saw it was 5:59pm as I passed through the wrought iron gates and found myself back on the main road, with trams, cars and buses all rushing by. It's amazing how quiet and peaceful the cemetery is, with such cacophony just beyond.

Hong Kong Cemetery exists in a sort of Twilight Zone or, perhaps more appropriately, in an October Country, that place where, as Ray Bradbury wrote, "it is always turning late in the year. That country where hills are fog and rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay."

Happy Halloween from Hong Kong!