Campus Legends and Hall Traditions — the Lily Pond Ghost, the Cursed Statues, "Vniversity", and Sourced Hall Customs

Wild-history section · Module 15 · Deep-dive one. This article has two parts. Part One collects folk legends and urban anecdotes circulating around HKU's campus; each is physically isolated in a red rumour box and labelled "circulating among students, unverified" or "tall tale" — none of it is presented as fact. Part Two collects hall traditions backed by official or credible sources, named and sourced as such. Any individual mentioned is referred to as "Mr./Ms. [surname]"; proper nouns (hall names, awards, crests) are kept as-is. This article does not concern current leadership.

# In this article

• Part One · Campus Folk Legends (the Lily Pond ghost · University Hall's cursed statues · the medical school mortuary · the "Vniversity" spelling)
• Part Two · Sourced Hall Traditions (the naming of Loke Yew Hall · St. John's High Table Dinner and Round the Island · University Hall's "Three Treasures" and Auntie Three)

See also: for the factual hall record, see 10 · Colleges/Halls; for student-media disputes, see Student Media and Free-Speech History; for campus-building facts, see 05 · Campus.

# Part One · Campus Folk Legends

⚠ Every item below is a legend circulating among students, with no official record, no incident report, and no archival corroboration. This archive collects them as folklore, physically isolated, and does not present them as fact or dramatise them.

# The Lily Pond ghost (unverified, circulating among students)

# University Hall's cursed statues (unverified, circulating among students)

# The medical school mortuary lock-in (unverified, circulating among students)

# The Main Building "Vniversity" spelling (tall tale · officially clarified)

# Part Two · Sourced Hall Traditions

The hall traditions below are backed by official or credible media sources and are recorded as such; for the factual record, see 10 · Colleges/Halls.

# The naming of Loke Yew Hall: from Great Hall to Loke Yew Hall (1956)

Loke Yew Hall is the great hall inside HKU's Main Building, one of the campus's most iconic ceremonial spaces.

According to the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO)'s page on HKU's Main Building^※, the Main Building was completed in 1912 and is HKU's oldest building; in 1956, the Great Hall inside it was renamed "Loke Yew Hall" in honour of Dr Loke Yew, an early benefactor of HKU.

Also according to AMO^※, Dr Loke Yew originated from Jiangmen, Guangdong, and later became a leading Chinese business figure in Malaya; in 1915 he provided HKU with an interest-free loan of HK$500,000 over 25 years, which was critical to the university's early development, and he also established scholarships to support Malayan Chinese students studying at HKU.

Masking note: "Loke Yew Hall" and the "Loke Yew Scholarship" are proper nouns and are kept as-is; Dr Loke Yew, as an early benefactor commemorated in a positive, official naming, may be named per the site's naming rules (00–12); he is referred to here as "Dr Loke Yew" for consistency.

# St. John's College: the High Table Dinner and Round the Island (RTI)

St. John's College is HKU's oldest residential hall (see 10 · St. John's College for detail); two of its signature traditions are officially documented:

High Table Dinner — according to the Wikipedia entry on Accommodation at the University of Hong Kong^※, St. John's was the first HKU hall to hold High Table Dinners (established in 1916), continuing the British university tradition of formal dress and shared seating between staff and students.

Round the Island (RTI) — according to St. John's College's official history page^※ and its official "Cultural" page^※:

# University Hall's "Three Treasures" and Auntie Three (the sourced part of the "Three Treasures")

University Hall is said to have "Three Treasures" — two identifiable artefacts and one documented person:

According to University Hall's official history page^※ and the factual record (10 · University Hall), the "Three Treasures" are: the "David's Deer" statue at the entrance (the hall's crest and spiritual symbol), the copper spiral staircase in the South Tower (reportedly one of only two such staircases in Hong Kong, University Hall having one of them), and the head cook, "Auntie Three."

Of these, Auntie Three is a verifiable real person and an official honouree, and so is recorded factually: according to HKU's official Honorary University Fellows page^※, Ms Yuen So Moy (known to residents as "Auntie Three") served University Hall from 1957 for more than forty years, retiring in 1998; her official titles were Cook IV, Assistant Cook, and Hall Attendant. She not only cooked but looked after residents in a matriarchal way — preparing meals for the sick and offering encouragement — and was awarded an Honorary University Fellowship by HKU in 2009.

Masking note: "Auntie Three"/Ms Yuen So Moy is a positive figure publicly honoured by HKU (naming rules 00–12) and is named here per the official page; other individual residents are not named. The "cursed statue" portion is a student legend and has already been isolated in Part One.

# Credibility Summary