If you take the bus to the Clearwater Bay bus terminus along Tai Au Mun Road, you may or may not notice a small granite slab on the opposite side of the road with some writing on it.
These stone tablets are actually more common than you'd think and are placed along roads in Hong Kong to - sadly - mark the location of fatal traffic accidents. I know of at least two others but I am sure there are many more given the poor standard of driving and general lack of road safety awarness here from drivers and pedestrians alike.
The Chinese inscription on these stones always has the same six character phrase, usually engraved and filled in in red ink - 喃嘸阿彌陀佛. This is basically the Buddhist phrase "Namo Amithaba". There's a sect of Chinese Buddhism that believes its recitation helps with reincarnation. For any fellow Kungfu film fans who watched a film with a Buddhist monk in it (I'm thinking The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and similar), you may be familiar with the last 4 words of this phrase - 阿彌陀佛 which in Cantonese sounds something like "Or Nay Tor Faat" - said by many a yellow-garbed monk as a greeting to others.
This particular stone in Clearwater Bay is of particular relevance to the HK film industry (so I have been told) because it marks the spot where Alexander Fu Sheng's (傅聲) car crashed back in July 1983.
I was told there was a shrine to Fu Sheng along Clearwater Bay Road a few years ago, but it appears that this is misleading in a couple of ways. First, this is not Clearwater Bay Road but is in fact Tai Au Mun Road - a road which connects Clearwater Bay Road to The Clearwater Bay Country Club. Secondly, this stone tablet makes no mention of Fu Sheng or the accident and is just a generic memorial tablet. It appears though that for Fu Sheng fans it doesn't really matter if it mentions him or not, it is quite obviously only here because of his car crash.
The photo above was taken in February 2024, and as you can see, Fu Sheng still has a dedicated followers that keep the offerings fresh 40+ years after his death. There is a fresh pomelo and some bamboo sticks.
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