decided to acquire all its land to create the present-day Bishan Town. Many graves were exhumed and remains cremated during the 1980s. After a long legal back-and-forth, the government compensated of land to Peck San Theng which accommodating an office block, a heritage museum, two temples and a columbarium. The columbarium houses some 100,000 niches which are available to the public irrespective of race, language and religion since 1980. It is managed by sixteen clan associations to provide as a place for ancestral worship in Singapore, particularly during Qing Ming Festival and Chong Yang Festival. Hakka Cemetery For many Singaporeans living in the west, a trip on the east–west line towards town is often filled with dread, given the distance and jostling for space on board. Yet in a pocket of space in-between Buona Vista and Commonwealth stations, there lies a little oasis of solace if one takes a look out to view the nearly 3000 neatly aligned graves amongst the many high-rise apartments of Holland Close. Built in 1969, this is the Ying Fo Fui Kun (应和会馆) Cemetery, better known as the Hakka Cemetery. The beginnings of the Hakka Cemetery trace back to 1822, when the first influx of migrants from the Guandong province set up the Ying Fo Fui Kun clan at Telok Ayer street. A minority group in comparison to the Hokkiens and Teochews, the carefully chosen words of "应和" or Ying Fo/Ho reflected their desire for a peaceful environment and mutual support amongst fellow migrants. In 1887, the Ying Fo Fui Kun clan bought over 100 hectares of land between the current Buona Vista and Commonwealth areas and named it Shuang Long Shan (双龙山) or Double Dragon Hill. The area was to be used as both a village and burial ground and was also chosen because the Chinese often saw the building of cemeteries on top of hills as being highly auspicious. Despite being met with constant resistance from the Colonial Government in the 1930s, it was not up till Singapore's independence in 1965 did negotiations between the clan and state began to fully reclaim the area of Shuang Long Shan for urban redevelopment. In 1969, all but 1.89 hectares of the land was returned to the state, and a 99-year lease was placed on the area where the current graves and ancestral halls of Shuang Long Shan Memorial Hall (双龙山念堂) and Wu Fu Tang Ancestral