Wang will for ritual burning, charity claims
The charity battling a fung shui master for Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum's massive estate claims the master secretly held on to a so-called fung shui will that should have been burned in a funeral ritual, a court heard yesterday.
This was disclosed by lawyers for the fung shui master, Tony Chan Chun-chuen. They said the 'half-baked allegation' was the latest in a series of claims put forward by the Chinachem Charitable Foundation to discredit Mr Chan's claim to the estate. The foundation should not be allowed to call evidence in support of its allegation, they argued.
Both sides have pointed to rival wills, dated four years apart, to prove their claim on the estimated HK$100 billion estate. A trial to determine the rightful heir starts on May 11.
Wang, who headed the Chinachem property empire she ran with her late husband Teddy Wang Teh-huei, died two years ago aged 69.
At a pre-trial hearing Edward Chan SC, rejected the claim that Tony Chan had secretly held on to a will prepared as part of a Taoist practice and which should have been destroyed at Wang's funeral.
'They are alleging this is a fung shui will,' he told Mr Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon in the Court of First Instance. 'We say there is no such thing as a fung shui will, no matter what their expert says.'
The foundation should not be allowed to call an expert at the trial next month to support its allegation, Edward Chan told the court.
The foundation had previously claimed that Mr Chan tricked Wang by promising her eternal life if she signed the estate over to him before her death. Yesterday, Edward Chan noted that the Chinachem side had also said Wang, once Asia's richest woman, had been mentally unfit to sign the 2006 will. Later, the charity had claimed that two people who had witnessed that will actually signed another document. Now Wang's charity was trying to make another fraud claim with no evidence to back it up, the barrister said.
'One cannot be allowed to make a half-baked allegation of fraud,' he said. 'They should not be allowed to make further changes to the case.'
Few details about the alleged fung shui will emerged yesterday.
Explaining the practice, fung shui expert Mak Ling-ling, who is not involved in the case, said such 'wills' were intended to help people pray for good luck and longevity. 'The will is posted to God by burning it.'
Ms Mak said the contents and practices varied. 'A fung shui master who helps a person draft a fung shui will has to find a good spot for burial,' she said. 'A coffin containing the person's hair or fingernails or clothes will be buried at the site. The person can then be reborn and start a new life with more luck.'
They were once the domain of royalty due to the high cost of burials. When people fell ill or landed in trouble, they would sometimes use fung shui wills to 'change their destiny'.
The Chinachem foundation's allegation comes less than two weeks after Wang's brother rejected Mr Chan's claim that he and Wang had carried on a 14-year affair.
