IN 1932, Siu Ming, a young man of 18, was suddenly obliged to take over the family business when his father died. The business was coffins: the Fook Sau Coffin Shop had been founded by his grandfather, Siu Chung-kei, who had come to Hong Kong from Guangdong to seek his fortune. According to family legend, the entire assets of the business which Siu Ming inherited were four pieces of wood, enough to make one coffin.
Siu Ming was evidently an excellent businessman because he went on to establish the Hong Kong Funeral Home in North Point, now run by his son, Kenneth Siu. When high society has to hold a funeral service, it is to North Point that the great and the good (and the attendant media cortege) make their way. Such capacity to serve has not gone unremarked.
On the wall of the director's office, next to a portrait of Siu Ming and diagonally opposite a large painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene, there are many photographic line-ups of boards of directors of the Po Leung Kuk charity: to be one of that select few is a mark of Hong Kong social prominence.
There is a framed citation from Queen Elizabeth. A blessing from the Pope is prominently displayed.
Just beneath His Holiness' signature are two more photographs. One is of Miss USA 1984 and the other of Miss Universe 1984. Siu Ming encountered them on one of his frequent visits to Las Vegas. When he died in 1986, the directors of Caesar's Palace were sufficiently moved by the passing of such an esteemed client to present the funeral home with an impressive bust of its founder. It resides on the fourth floor, outside his former office, surrounded by flowers.
It will come as no surprise to learn that death, like everything else in Hong Kong, has its lucrative aspects. Above Siu Ming's office there is a room full of coffins from which bereaved clients may select a casket for their loved ones. The first, just inside the door, is huge, lotus-shaped and bears the price-tag of $550,000; it is by no means the most expensive. A coffin constitutes the single largest outlay during any funeral and, traditionally, it was the item for which families paid as much as they could afford. In the old days, it was considered an act of filial piety if a son gave his elderly father a coffin as a birthday present; this removed all worry about the pressing economics of the inevitable burial.