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Sherry Lee

For Yau Koon-lin,  the nightmare began in 2007 when a fellow villager in Kam Shan, Tai Po, sold his home to a company called Fancy Lotus. 
The company turned the single-storey house next to the Yau clan's ancestral hall - right in the middle of the village - into a columbarium called Cheung Ha Ching Shea,  a five-minute walk from the Tai Wo MTR station. Cheung Ha Ching Shea's land lease is typical of many in the New Territories in that there are no restrictions on its use.
The columbarium, which started operating in 2008, has since sparked claims and counterclaims in a row that would surely have the dead spinning in their graves. 
'Residents are scared of the columbarium. The next block's neighbour quickly moved away,' Yau said. Another family wants to sell their flat, but no one is willing to buy it because of being next to a columbarium, villagers say. 
'We wrote letters and met the Lands Department but it refused to intervene,' Yau, an indigenous villager, said. 
The columbarium operator was accused of tearing down protest banners that were hung on the outer wall of the ancestral hall. The villagers' anger over Cheung Ha led to a demonstration in February 2009 and a legal wrangle between Fancy Lotus and Yau, which went nowhere. Then their ancestral tablet went missing, Yau said, but police could not link the case to anyone. 
 Yuen Seen-pun, 66, one of three owners of Fancy Lotus, said he is just trying to run a business. 
'Naturally, we consulted our lawyers over whether the lease allowed us to build a columbarium before we started our business. We have sold almost 400 niches already. Is it fair to the buyers [if we are stopped from doing business]?' 
The only avenue residents have to challenge Cheung Ha's legality is the area's 'village type development' zoning, which does not allow columbariums. 
If the columbarium is approved through a zoning change, villagers fear they will be disturbed by hundreds of grave sweepers during the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, and by noise pollution and smoke from the burning of incense and paper offerings. 
Cheung Tak-ming, who has lived in Kam Shan for 14 years, said: 'We never expected to have a columbarium with almost 4,000 niches next to our homes.'




'Residents are scared of the columbarium ... the next block's neighbour quickly moved away'