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Sherry Lee

Villagers protested about its construction. Officials challenged work on The Shrine. Now  backers of the columbarium are facing opposition from a most unexpected quarter - ghosts. 
Since last week, security guards hired by developer Aptus have refused to work inside the premises because they believe the building - a renovated house - is haunted. 
The company hired monks to perform a Buddhist ritual intended to 'chase away the ghosts'.
But that did not appease the guards, who  now work and sleep outside the gate and refuse to go inside. 
Two guards declined to be interviewed. But according to several residents in San Wai Tsuen, legend has it that the building was a military headquarters during the Japanese occupation in the second world war, and many villagers were killed there. 
'Elderly villagers said the Japanese killed people from San Wai Tsuen and other villages in the house. Since then, villagers have said the building is haunted,' villager Tse Man-fu said.  
Aptus chairman Lam Wai-pong  dismissed the rumour.
'Certainly, there is no ghost,' Lam said, before hanging up the phone. An Aptus spokesman confirmed a religious ritual was performed on Saturday but declined to make further comment.
'The event held last Saturday was a private event. I am afraid that we cannot provide any comments on rumours,' he said. 'The management has the right to decide what to disclose to the public.'
Veteran niche agent Alex Chan Ka-po said customers would be scared to buy niches there.  'According to Chinese astrology, a haunted place is not good for fung shui and putting a deceased's ashes there will affect the luck of future generations,' Chan said.
 Lee Chun-jane, 67, is believed to be the only surviving villager  who has lived in the building. She first lived there in 1968 when she came to visit her fiance, who lived in the house. She married him the following year and said she twice saw ghosts. 
'Just before I fell asleep, a small boy [came]  out of the wall next to a wardrobe. He was laughing. I couldn't move,' she said. One the second occasion she woke up and saw 'a young girl with short hair standing next to my bed. She disappeared in the blink of an eye.
'My husband later found out lots of people died in the house during the Japanese occupation,' she said.
Today the problems are coming from the living. Villagers are upset at having a columbarium in their neighbourhood, and claim it breaches land lease and zoning conditions. 
According to Antiquities and Monuments Office  records, the house was built in the 1930s by Wong Chuen-choi, who emigrated to Canada during the Qing dynasty and later returned to the village. His son, Wong Jik, moved to the United States during the Sino-Japanese war and the two-storey house was left empty until it was occupied by the Japanese.



Protests, officialdom and now ghosts dog Yuen Long project