Reflections | New York’s Green-Wood cemetery, the world’s oldest working cemetery where Confucius is buried, and why I choose cremation

There is a fascination to graveyards such as Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, and Père Lachaise in Paris, and the stories of their occupants, some illustrious

The world’s oldest continuously working cemetery, in Qufu, Shandong, China, holds the remains of philosopher Confucius and 76 generations of his descendants

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Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, founded in 1838, with the Manhattan skyline as a backdrop. The world’s oldest working cemetery is that of Confucius and his descendants in Shandong, China. Photo: Shutterstock

Wee Kek Koon

Published: 7:45am, 14 Oct 2023Updated: 8:21am, 14 Oct 2023

One of the more interesting things we did during our visit to New York was going to a storytelling event at the Green-Wood Cemetery in west Brooklyn. It was organised by The Moth, a New York-based non-profit group dedicated to the art of storytelling.

While I would very much like to meet or see a ghost, I was made to do an online check to make sure that the seventh month of the traditional Chinese calendar, when hungry ghosts are released from the other world to roam this one, was well and truly over.

Thus assured, we made our way to the cemetery in the bracing evening breeze, fortified by the piña coladas that we just had with our delicious Puerto Rican dinner.

The 193-hectare (477-acre) Green-Wood Cemetery is a National Historic Landmark. It is not as famous as the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris where composer Frédéric Chopin, writer Oscar Wilde and singer Édith Piaf are buried, but Green-Wood boasts memorials to a number of notable people.

Among these are the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, music conductor Leonard Bernstein, and William Colgate and Charles Pfizer, pioneers of industry and commerce who gave their names to products still found in the bathrooms and medicine cabinets of many homes.