You Say Goodbye and I Say Hello

Location:
Canada

Chinese Cemetery Visit

By Walter Moores

Ask most people about their travel wishes and they will typically give you a list of sites they want to see “before they die”. I’d like to tell you of a place you’ll want to go before and after your demise. It is the Chinese Cemetery at Harling Point in Victoria, British Columbia. Whether you refer to it as “graving”, taphophilia or morbid curiosity, there is much to recommend in a jaunt to the graveyard. Humans’ fascination, fear and respect of death are all found in the areas reserved for our deceased. Elements of our art, architecture, literature and customs are displayed there. It can be a place for mourning or joy, celebration or reflection. Death is, perhaps, the most interesting aspect of our life. I have always loved cemeteries, whisking off on macabre diversions in nearly every place I’ve visited. The solitude, solemnity and peacefulness they award are wonderfully contemplative contrasts to the touristy pitfalls of an alien city. The Chinese Cemetery sits on a seaside bluff, sloping down from Gonzales Hill to the waters of Oak Bay. Exiting the bus, I was immediately overcome by the sheer beauty and majesty of the site. It is, in every sense, breathtaking. There is no air of pomp or aggrandizement in its presentation. The intention of the designers is not overt. Simplicity is the order. The cemetery is based on the Eastern principle of feng shui, the management of the chi (or “life force”), since bastardized by fashionable westerners into commercial stylization and pretense. Here though, the true concepts are exquisitely displayed in the paradigm; earth, water, balance. At first, it is difficult to even recognize it as a cemetery. You pass down the sloping hill away from the surrounding homes and the development fades away. Wildflowers and grasses lilt and flow in the sea breeze. The grave markers are small and unassuming. The air is pure. A few hundred feet more, standing on the large rocks of the shore, you look out over the bay to a limitless sky. Cottages and lighthouses dot the horizon as waves lap gently at your feet. To your right, the bay opens into the Strait of Juan de Fuca thru to the vastness of the Pacific, extending thousands of miles west toward China, where the bones of the interred were originally planned to return. Built in 1903, the site was intended to temporarily house the bones of the Chinese immigrants who came to Victoria to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. They believed that the souls of those who die on foreign soil wander lost until their bones are returned home. After seven years the bones would be exhumed, cleaned, dried and sent back to the home villages in China. The Sino-Japanese War in China ended the practice in the 1930s and the cemetery became a permanent burial ground until its’ closing in the early 1950s. Designated a National Historic Site by the government of Canada in 1996, the cemetery was refurbished in 2001. There is no sense of sadness or loss here. Other visitors wandered awestruck, chatting casually in hushed tones inspired more by the cemetery’s beauty than any sense of sullen respect. Local teens sat on the rocky shoreline in quiet reflection. The area effortlessly calms and soothes. It is a perspective born of enormity and the infinite, not confinement or finality. Unlike the more dour aspects of other gravesites, this cemetery promotes tranquility with a continual eye toward the endless, cyclical nature of life. As a graveyard enthusiast, it should simply have been a small lark on a larger tour. There were none of my usual cemetery interests; no discernable dates, no epitaphs to read, no huge mausoleums or crypts, no opulent statuary. It was one of those rare, unscripted surprises that transform an ordinary excursion into something truly special. It also became one of my favorite places on earth. I speak of it often in reflection and its impact on me has been undeniable. It made a devout atheist, with a fervent preference for cremation, slightly reconsider his funereal options.

Further Information

Travel tips: Do not take the guided tour. Seek the cemetery out on your own. You will want more time than the tour allows.

Must see/do at this place: Regard your mortality.

You should avoid here: Not a thing.