Large portraits of Abby Choi were placed inside and at the entrance of the funeral home. -: Dickson Lee
HONG KONG (South China Morning Post): Hundreds of mourners attended a pink-themed funeral service for slain Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung on Sunday (June 18), with Cantopop star Aaron Kwok Fu-shing among celebrities sending wreaths.
In a departure from traditional Chinese funerals where black and white are normally used for mourning, the memorial hall for the service was extensively decorated in pink, said to be Choi’s favourite colour.
The whole ground floor of Po Fook Memorial Hall in Tai Wai was draped with pink curtains and decorated with pink and white flowers. Two 1.5-metre-tall (five-foot-tall) photos of the socialite and model were placed at either side of the entrance.
Several huge portraits of the socialite were also positioned inside the hall with wreaths from friends and relatives placed under them. They included ones from friend Moka Fang and her superstar husband Aaron Kwok, singer Calvin Choy Yat-chi of pop group Grasshopper and his wife, and Virginia Lok Yee-ling, a senior executive at broadcaster TVB.
Choi’s partial remains were discovered in a village house in Tai Po in late February, three days after the 28-year-old went missing. Her ex-husband Alex Kwong Kong-chi, his parents and brother have been charged in connection with the killing.
The funeral, which started at 4pm, was held behind closed doors and only close relatives and friends could attend. Funeral workers checked the identity of mourners at the entrance amid a heavy police presence.
The Post observed eight coaches dropping off at least 400 mourners at a car park next to the funeral home from 4.30pm to 5.30pm.
Choi’s friends and relatives had to queue outside the parlour at one point before entering.
Police set up a press area for at least 40 journalists next to the Sha Tin Forensic Medical Centre opposite the funeral home.
A source familiar to the situation earlier said the funeral would involve Buddhist rituals. The service would be followed by a ceremony the next morning before the remains are taken to Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island for cremation.
The horrifying case came to light on Feb 24 when police officers found Choi’s skull, legs and some broken ribs in the ground-floor flat of a three-storey village house in Tai Po’s Lung Mei Tsuen.
Despite extensive searches in a landfill in the New Territories and a cemetery in Tseung Kwan O, police were unable to locate any other body parts of Choi.
Her family retrieved her remains in April from Fu Shan Public Mortuary.
Choi’s former husband, Alex Kwong, 28, his father, Kwong Kau, 65, and elder brother Anthony Kwong Kong-kit, 32, had been remanded in custody on a joint murder charge.
Kwong’s mother, Jenny Li Sui-heung, 63, who has been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to the case, was also remanded after failing in her second attempt to secure bail last month.
