HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
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Hawaii's Oldest Chinese Cemetery in the Manoa Valley
3220 East Manoa Road, Honolulu, HI 96822
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during daylight hours.
Access
Limited Access
Steep terraced hillside; many graves accessible only by stone stairs
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1852 · Oldest Chinese Cemetery in Hawaii · Feng-Shui Designed Cultural Landscape · Lin Yee Chung Association Property
Chinese laborers began arriving in the Kingdom of Hawaii in significant numbers in the 1850s to work on sugar plantations. In 1852 a group of Chinese-Hawaiian community leaders organized the Lin Yee Chung Association to acquire land for a dedicated burial ground that would observe Chinese funerary traditions, including geomantic site selection. The association purchased a 28-acre south-facing parcel on the inland slope of the Manoa Valley.
The site was selected by Lum Ching, since memorialized as the Grand Ancestor, who laid out the cemetery according to feng-shui principles. The location balances the surrounding mountains, valley, and the view of the Pacific Ocean to the south. Lin Yee Chung translates roughly as 'gathering place of good will.'
The first burials occurred in 1852. Over the following century and a half the cemetery grew to hold many thousands of graves, including those of community founders, plantation laborers, merchants, and World War II Chinese-American servicemen. Although established for the Chinese community, the cemetery later accepted neighborhood burials of other backgrounds.
The cemetery remains an active site, owned and operated by the Lin Yee Chung Association. The Qing Ming festival each spring brings families to the cemetery to clean graves, leave food offerings, and burn joss paper. Historic Hawai'i Foundation has recognized the cemetery as a significant cultural property of the Manoa Valley.
Sources
Manoa Chinese Cemetery occupies a prominent place in Honolulu's oral paranormal tradition. Three phenomena recur in collected accounts. The first is the sound of children laughing — described as faint, distant, and impossible to localize — heard on the lower terraces in late afternoon and evening. The second is the appearance of slow-moving orange points of light, sometimes described as orbs, observed drifting across the upper grave terraces after dusk.
The third and most-cited account is of a woman in traditional Chinese mourning attire seen kneeling at the foot of a grave. Witnesses describe her as semi-transparent and recede as they approach. Local folklore identifies her variously as a mother grieving a lost child or a wife tending her husband's grave.
A widely shared 2008 incident involves an anonymous Honolulu Police Department officer responding to a noise complaint at the cemetery. The officer reported finding the grounds empty, then observing two child-sized figures behind a headstone that disappeared on approach. The officer further reported children's voices singing in the silence and his patrol car radio turning on by itself after he had switched it off. The account has circulated on Honolulu paranormal sites since its initial publication and is the cemetery's most-told modern story.
The cemetery is an active sacred site for the Chinese-Hawaiian community. Visitors are asked to maintain quiet, refrain from touching offerings or grave goods, and avoid stepping on grave markers. Paranormal investigation is not appropriate to the site's cultural use, and the Lin Yee Chung Association does not endorse or host paranormal tours.
Notable Entities
Walk the terraced hillside of Hawaii's oldest and largest Chinese cemetery, established in 1852. The 28-acre site is laid out according to feng-shui principles on a south-facing slope of the Manoa Valley.
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