In the Hongkong Standard newspaper:
The late Chinachem Group tycoon Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum was consulting Tony Chan Chun-chuen on fung shui matters even when it became apparent that she would lose her fight with cancer.
Kung Yan-sum told a probate hearing in the High Court she overheard Wang, her sister, consulting Chan on fung shui matters such as the the most suitable hospital floor and room numbers even at the late stages of her fight with the disease.
Kung said this in citing reasons for why she believed the relationship between Wang and Chan was nothing more than that between an employer and a fung shui consultant.
Kung was testifying for the Chinachem Charitable Foundation, which is involved in a probate battle with Chan for Wang’s huge estate.
She told the court the reason she and her siblings did not accompany Wang when she sought medical treatment in the United States was because the tycoon believed in fung shui so much that she thought their birth dates were not conducive to her recovery.
Kung earlier in the day told the court Wang believed that she had within her body sarira – bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the ashes of cremated Buddhist spiritual masters.
Chan revealed this to Wang’s family the day after she died in April 2007 in a meeting he called by saying he wanted to return a lot of things that belonged to the late tycoon, including her signature pigtails and photos.
In a tense meeting, Wang’s three siblings – Kung, another sister and brother – challenged Chan over his role in their late sister’s life.
When Chan told the three siblings that he had known their sister for 17 years and gave her massages everyday to ease her headaches, one of the sisters, Kung Chung-sum, expressed surprise and asked the fung shui master if his wife didn’t mind him doing that to another woman.
Chan said his wife did.
Kung Yan-sum, pictured outside court today with Kung Chung-sum on her left, testified she then sought Chan’s help with the funeral arrangements.
When Chan said that the late tycoon, besides believing she had sarira, was also afraid of insects, the brother, Kung Yan-san, suggested Wang be cremated and a decision was later taken to proceed with it.
The hearing continues.