A Taiwanese court threw out a man's million-dollar claim that a neighbor destroyed his family's good-luck burial charms, awarding him only a token payment for the land itself.

• Li bought land in Chiayi's Meishan township years ago to bury urns holding his family's hair and nail clippings — a folk ritual meant to boost fortune, not an actual grave.
• A neighbor, Huang, found the plot overgrown and abandoned, cleared it, and planted ginger on a small patch without permission.
• Li sued for at least NT$1.5 million, arguing digging equipment must have wrecked the buried urns and that Huang, a relative of the feng shui master involved, knew they were there.
• The court found no proof of damage — the unearthed urns were intact — and said Huang did not know about them, so only the land use was wrongful.
• Huang was ordered to pay roughly NT$7,000, equal to rent for the 22 months of occupation, on top of an earlier criminal conviction for squatting.

Outlook: The ruling can still be appealed, but the evidence standard set here makes a bigger payout unlikely.