Moon Mausoleum
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
The once huge floating restaurant Jumbo Kingdom used to be an iconic landmark in Hong Kong for decades. Now there is only a capsized wreck left and stories about good times at the restaurant as well as ghost stories that came from the place.
The once huge floating restaurant Jumbo Kingdom used to be an iconic landmark in Hong Kong for decades. Now there is only a capsized wreck left and stories about good times at the restaurant as well as ghost stories that came from the place.
The Jumbo Kingdom (珍寶王國) was a floating restaurant in Aberdeen Harbour in Hong Kong for 44 years before capsizing because of bad weather and an iconic landmark for tourist to experience. It was built in the 1970s and has architecture with traditional Chinese vibes and luxurious decorations.
After being in operation for so many years, it is no wonder that haunted rumors started to attach itself to the huge restaurant. Here are some of them:
Every night more than 2000 people could eat at the place and the visitors ate crabs, lobster and suckling pig at the place, and even if it wasn’t the best food, it was certainly an experience to eat there, looking out over the harbor.
Not all is glamorous dining at the floating restaurant though as the drowned bodies are taken to the underside of the restaurant by the current in the harbor. Even though they were not far from land, there was always a danger of the water and there were often search teams looking for missing people under the restaurant.
Some say that these drowned spirits latched onto the restaurant and haunted the place, trying to get ashore.
Even before opening, there was a huge tragedy that struck the floating restaurant and lingered in people’s memories. Some say this is one of the reasons the place had such a haunted rumor about it.
After a fire in 1971, 54 people died when the four deck structure was set aflame in mere minutes after an explosion. This was even before it opened as a restaurant.
After these events, visitors, especially children for some reason have reported seeing spirits with no feet around the halls of the restaurant. Could it be the workers that got trapped during the explosion? Perhaps it is a mix of them and the lost souls that gets carried by the current.
Perhaps most mysterious of all, were the stories about visitors seeing a lone woman rowing towards them in the dark.
There are legends about a mysterious woman rowing a small boat at night by the restaurant that people are saying is a ghost. This alludes to the practice prostitutes used in Hong Kong back in the day when they rowed out to ship waiting in the bay to earn money from the sailors waiting in their ships in the harbor.
People think that the floating life full of life and lights in the bay reminds the spirits of the prostitute ghost at sea about their life and attracts them.
Perhaps something went wrong rowing out to the boats and the women are still rowing, long after their death.
In 2022, the whole floating restaurant capsized after years of misfortune. It closed down during the pandemic, and never got to reopen after.
Perhaps now the floating restaurant itself will become a haunted ship, floating in the harbor in Hong Kong, never forgetting it was once an iconic landmark of the city.
