The cemetery was established in 1882, carved into the hillside of Pok Fu Lam at a time when Hong Kong was still finding the geography of itself. It is managed by the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Churches Union (香港華人基督教聯會) and sits sandwiched between Pok Fu Lam Road at the top and Victoria Road near the bottom, facing Sandy Bay to the west. The construction followed the natural slope — plots were laid out from the higher contours downward, expanding toward Victoria Road as the decades passed and the community grew. Part of the cemetery now extends beyond Victoria Road itself. From certain headstones you can catch glimpses of the water below, grey-green under overcast skies, or silver in full sun. It is a working necropolis, still receiving the dead, still tending the old graves.

What distinguishes this cemetery from others in Hong Kong is the density of founding figures interred within it. Ma Ying-piu, who opened Sincere Department Store in 1900 — one of the first modern department stores in China — lies here alongside his father and grandfather. Guo Hao, founder of Wing On Department Store, is a neighbor in death. Lam Chi-fung, who established both Ka Wah Bank and Hong Kong Baptist University, rests on these same slopes. These were not simply wealthy men; they were institution-builders who shaped the commercial and educational landscape of twentieth-century Hong Kong and southern China, often against the grain of a colonial system that did not always make room for them.

The revolutionary strain running through this cemetery is remarkable. Au Fung-Chi, who tutored Sun Yat-sen in Chinese literature, is here. Sun Jinwan, Sun Yat-sen's own daughter, is buried on this hillside. So is Tai En Sai, his son-in-law. Li Yutang, a wealthy Guangdong businessman who joined the Tongmenghui — the secret society that worked to overthrow the Qing — is interred nearby. Tse Tsan-tai, co-founder of the South China Morning Post and a revolutionary in his own right, died in 1938 and has been here since. These are people who sat in the same rooms as the architects of modern China, who risked their lives for a republic that eventually came, and who ended their days in this quiet corner of a British colony.

Wang Chung-yik, who died in 1930, was the first Chinese professor at a Hong Kong university. Catherine F. Woo, who died in 1979, was the first female doctor in Hong Kong. Eddie Hui, the last Commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police before its handover-era renaming, is here. Xu Dishan — author, translator, and folklorist, one of the significant literary voices of early twentieth-century China — died in Hong Kong in 1941 and was buried on this hill. He Dasha, counted among the 'Four Heavenly Kings' of Chinese traditional music, lies here too. The list goes on: actors, politicians, educators, entrepreneurs, a DJ. The cemetery doesn't rank them. The hillside takes them all.

Most visitors to Pok Fu Lam pass the cemetery without stopping. The neighborhood is known for its old dairy farm, its reservoir walks, its village — one of Hong Kong's last surviving indigenous villages on the main island. But the cemetery on Pok Fu Lam Road rewards the slow visitor. The terraced layout means you ascend through generations, stepping between characters from a very long story. The inscriptions are in Chinese. The crosses and the faith are Christian. The lives they mark were shaped by revolution, commerce, medicine, music, and colonial complexity. Here, on a west-facing hillside that catches the afternoon light off Sandy Bay, a century and a half of Hong Kong's Chinese history lies in rows.