Hong Kong Has No Space Left for the Dead (vice.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:30AM from the what's-happening dept.

Justin Heifetz, writing for Motherboard: When Fung Wai-tsun's family carried their grandfather's ashes across the Hong Kong border to Mainland China in 2013, they worried Customs officers, thinking the urn was full of drugs, would stop them. Fung, like many others in Hong Kong, could not find a space to lay his loved one to rest in his own city and would have to settle for a site across the border and hours away. It's an increasingly common story as demand for spaces to house the dead outpaces supply here in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory of some 7.4 million people. Hong Kong's public, government-run spaces to store ashes -- which are affordable to the public, starting at $360 -- have waiting lists that can last years. But many Chinese, like Fung, strongly believe the ashes must be put in a resting place immediately as to not disrespect their ancestor's spirit. Meanwhile, a private space -- one that is not run by the government -- tends to start at more than $6,000 and can go for as high as $130,000. This is simply not an option for many families like the Fung's. In Hong Kong, most people cremate their loved ones and house the urns in columbariums, or spaces where people can then go to pay their respects. While burying a body is possible, the option is prohibitively expensive -- and besides, Hong Kong has a law that the body must be exhumed after six years, at which point one must be cremated.

1 of 165 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Good. by hackel · 2017-10-23 07:26 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Maybe these idiot Chinese people will enter the 21st century and stop worrying about superstitious nonsense like "disrespecting their ancestor's spirit." I only wish there was a way we could convince all the idiot Christians in the west of this, and outlaw cemeteries once and for all. This is one area where China should exert it's authority over stupid people and require that the bodies be converted into fertilizer to serve the greater good of society in the most environmentally friendly way possible. Cremation releases lots of CO2 and other toxic gasses into the air and is unacceptable.