The family of late Hong Kong actress Kathy Chow Hoi-mei has said she will be buried in Beijing, where she lived for 21 years before her death four months ago.
A joint statement released by the family and Chow’s office on Thursday said the former star, who was 57 years old when she died of a heart attack in December, would be buried in Tianshou Cemetery in Beijing’s Changping district.
“Our family has looked into many places in Hong Kong and Beijing, and we found this new home was the right choice,” the statement said.
The family noted both Chow and her mother were fond of the site, which was also a “convenient spot for different people to visit and pay their respect”.
“[Kathy] really liked Beijing. She had been living and working in Beijing since she was 36 years old,” the family said.
The choice differed from the family’s previously announced plan to bury Chow’s ashes in Hong Kong.
The family said all of Chow’s social media accounts, including one dedicated to her pet dog, would also be kept.
In a separate statement issued via local publication Ming Pao Weekly, the family said Chow had expressed her appreciation for the burial site after a visit a few years ago, choosing it as a place to bury her father who died in 2017. But the plan was eventually dropped
Relatives said flowers and an electronic machine playing readings of Buddhist scriptures would be placed at Chow’s grave.
Chow was born and raised in Hong Kong, launching her acting career as a trainee with local broadcaster TVB. She rose to fame after playing Zhou Zhiruo in the famous adaptation of the martial arts novel The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber by Louis Cha Leung-yung, commonly known as Jin Yong.
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She also played Fang Xuening in the 1986 television series The Feud of Two Brothers, a drama that ranked among the top 10 Chinese-language shows in the 20th century as voted by Singaporean media.
Chow relocated to Beijing in 2003, with her role about a decade later in The Empress of China, starring Fan Bingbing, turning her into a household name in mainland China.
Beijing police later arrested a hospital worker in connection with the leak, as the city’s municipal health commission also announced it would investigate.