Chinese Mourn The Dead In New Fashions

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, April 06, 2002

Chinese Mourn The Dead In New Fashions

Zhao Xiaqiu, 66, a professor with the People's University of China, together with her husband, placed before her mother's portrait a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums on this rainy Friday.

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Public Memorial Ceremony Held at the Mausoleum of Huangdi

Zhao Xiaqiu, 66, a professor with the People's University of China, together with her husband, placed before her mother's portrait a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums on this rainy Friday.

Zhao said that when her mother died five years ago, they dropped an urn containing her mother's ashes into the sea and some earth from her garden.

"My brother in Taiwan and our third generation studying abroad have prompted such a decision," she said. "The sea will unite us and mother no matter where we are."

April 5 is a traditional Chinese holiday, on which people would visit their ancestral tombs and offer fruit and cakes. It is said that rain, which arouses sadness, often accompanies the holiday.

Although it is estimated that over 80,000 people visited cemeteries in Beijing Friday, experts believe more and more people will mourn the deceased in new fashions.

President of the China Undertakers' Association Fan Zhaoqi said that China's rapid economic development has helped people discard such bad habits as burning fake paper money as an offering to the dead.

Fan says, on the other hand, people have welcomed new ways of burying and paying respects to the dead. For instance, many people have set up memorials on the Internet.

In Sichuan and Shanxi provinces, many people favor planting a tree for the deceased, which will save land and at the same time improve the environment.

Citizens in Fuzhou, capital city of east China's Fujian province, plant flowers instead.

Huang Yin, 72, who planted red flowers on his mother and wife's tombs, said, "They will be glad to have flowers as companions."

In Shanghai, people play music to the dead. Li Yizhou, 10, stood before his mother's tomb and softly played his saxophone.

Li, tears in his eyes, said, "I played Kenny G's Going Home because it was my mom's favorite."

Xu Yaoqui, an expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, "How people mourn the dead is a mirror reflecting their values and outlooks."

Besides mourning their relatives and friends, thousands of people are paying respects to heroes and scientists in various ways.

Some have anonymously set up an Internet memorial for Lu Jiaxi, a famous chemist and former president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

A high-school student named Zhang Sichao says he would like to become a scientist like Lu.

The biggest portal that provides such services, cn.netor.com, has set up 11,000 memorials for the dead, including ordinary people and such famous people as former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

People pay honor to Marshal He Long who devoted himself to China's sports after New China was founded. A net user named Liu Xin said, "I hope you have learned that China will host the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing."

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