No More Big Dead Tombs in China

As China’s Income Gap Grows, Tombs Are a Target
Sharon LaFraniere, The New York Times (April 22, 2011)

Since 1997, official policy limits the size of cemetery plots in China, promoting low cost funeral arrangements regardless of the wealth of the deceased. That doesn’t mean it happens. From the bottom end of this article:

Most Chengdu mourners interviewed expressed skepticism about the tomb limits. At Temple of the Lighted Lamp cemetery, Kuang Lan, 42, said: “My personal opinion is if you have the money to make a bigger tomb, make a bigger one. If not, make a smaller one.”

 

But Yang Bin, 48, who earns roughly $150 a month chiseling tombstones at Zhenwu Shan cemetery, quietly criticized the excesses of “capitalists” who “are everywhere now.”

 

“This is how the Chinese are,” he said, after trudging down the cemetery’s steep hill in his thin, black cloth shoes. “If they have money, they want to show off their face. If you don’t have money, you have to work.”

And for everything that I could say, I have only one comment. It comes from the 1980s band Men Without Hats: