Philadelphia Area Cemeteries - Hillside Cemetery's Asian Garden Section

Hillside Cemetery is located on Susquehanna Rd. in Roslyn, Montgomery County, PA.

I do not know the acreage of the Cemetery but it is large and well maintained.

The cemetery was founded about 1885, chartered in 1890 and merged with Ardsley Burial Park in 1953. It is owned and operated by the Greenspan Family.

I have been at this cemetery before and took a few pictures, however, I did not get hard copies of the photos I took and lost them in a hard drive crash. So I decided to go out again and take photos. This cemetery has a huge Asian population, and their monuments are unbelieveably gorgeous! I have been here before to photograph this section, but was unable to because of various reasons: a funeral, mourners, people visiting graves.

Asians have a tradition of ancestor veneration and I believe they tend to do this at their gravesites. I have seen flowers, fruit and incense burners on these graves. Doing some preliminary research on Asian Burial Traditions I have found that the fruit offerings are made to earn the deceased soul merits.

This is one of two "Gates" in this section.

One of the "Guardian Dogs" flanking the Gate.

A overview of the section.

Notice that all graves are facing the same way and none are back to back.

There are also a few Gazebos in this section.

This is just some flowers on the floor of one of them.

The LAM Gravesite

Just the table and chairs for this gravesite.

If anyone knows what these symbolize, please post your comment.

LAM Monument

LIM Gravesite.

I was struck by the vibrant colirs of the flowers.

The photo does them no justice.

TEKHONG Gravesite

The colors on this grave are wondeful.

The flowers just seem to accent the other colors.

The grave is built into a small hill, possibly a burial mound?

The photos do not do this section justice. It is GORGEOUS in this section; almost all the monuments are red, the flowers are bright, the vases and other accents all add to their sense of 'LIFE' not 'death'. I actually got the sense that this is more of a happy place - not sad like our Western ideas of cemeteries.