Top 10 Random Facts about Chinese Funerals

As we are in this nature of business, let's catch up with some of these random facts about Chinese Funerals but before we begin...

DID YOU KNOW

If you are from IPOH, we are a privately own CHINESE COLUMBARIUM located near SAM POH TONG. It's just 2 minutes drive from Shen Jai School located at BOTANI. Feel free to come visit us!

RANDOM FACT 1

Time is changing, so are our offerings to ancestors.

Once a year in April, Chinese's cemeteries are more densely populated with the living than the dead. Millions of people of Chinese descent visit the graves of their ancestors to burn paper money as an offering as part of the annual Qing Ming Festival, or Tomb-sweeping Day. This has been our practice since some 2,500 years ago, we used to burn hell money as offering, now we burn laptops, mansions and helicopters; well because inflation happens.

It is our belief that if we burn paper money and make offerings at the graves of your ancestors, they will receive them in the afterlife and put them to good use.

In days gone by, the offering might have been seen as a way to appease ghosts but it was also a way for people to show their filial duties into the afterlife.

Somehow we feel that burning just paper money and offered fresh fruits and flowers are not enough. Hence up-to-date paper offerings has become flashy!

RANDOM FACT 2

In November 2010, shortage of diesel let to bodies to queue for cremation

China consumes about 8 million barrels of oil a day, compared to 20 million a day in the United States. Put another way China with nearly a quarter of the world's population consume less a tenth of the world's oil while the United States with less tan 5 percent of the world's population accounts for nearly a quarter of global oil consumption.

Guess family have to wait for the waking ceremony

Why does it matter for this random fact? As a result, in November 2010 a nationwide shortage of diesel caused gas stations to close and long lines to form outside ones that were open. There is a Funeral parlor in Chongqing stopped cremations. A dozen or so bodies had to be “put back in the freezer” until enough supplies could secured.

RANDOM FACT 3

Death Ritual with a stripper!

Guess we have to include something more interesting like this one. Being dead can be such a bore, unless there are professional strippers in the funeral. In China’s Donghai region, funerals are actually status symbols. A dead man’s reputation and honor is considered to be directly proportional to the number of people who attend his funeral. So, the relatives hire strippers to pull the crowds. The Chinese authorities have started cracking down on the practice after incessant media glare.

Video from Youtube Channel: IN THE NOW

Follow them here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbGif2gxFLxGDxG9CeA_fvg

In rural China some people hire strippers for funerals to attract more mourners. A huge crowd at the ceremony is said "to bring more honor to the deceased" and is also seen as an omen of good fortune in the afterlife. China's government calls the tradition ''obscene'' and is seeking to ban it.

RANDOM FACT 4

Ghost Wedding, till death do us part, or maybe not!

This custom had been practiced for some 3,000 years. You don't believe of such custom exists? It is said that marrying bones or ashes of the couple will ensures the unmarried dead are not alone in the afterlife.

When this custom started, it was originally conducted by the living to wed two single deceased people, either in bones or ashes but in the recent times, some have involved in marrying one living person to another corpse.

In ghost marriages between two dead people, the "bride's" family demands a bride price (like in the living) and there is even a dowry, which includes jewellery, servants and a mansion but of course all in the form of paper tributes.

And also like in the living, factors like age and family background are as essential as they are in more traditional weddings. Whats more importantly, Feng Shui Master will pick a date accordingly to their birth dates and their parents birth date... and also just like in the living.

What more horrifying is in 2015, it was reported that 14 female corpses were stolen in one village in Shanxi province. Villagers said tomb-raiders stole the bodies to make money. For what? Of course so that he could sell them for marriage like these... Hmmmm....

RANDOM FACT 5

FOUR Years Waiting Line for an Urn Space?

Hong Kong's dead should not have to wait in line for an urn space. According to SCMP, with waiting times averaging four years and a looming shortage of 300,000 columbarium box by 2023, private and communities columbarium industry must collaborate on a solution.

To help solve the problem, HK government has pledge to add 450,000 public niches by 2022. According to SCMP, this target seems not achievable; given that only 2,540 new niches had been built as of last year – a worrying figure against an annual demand of over 40,000 niche spaces. The dearth of public niches has led to a spike in demand and prices for the few new private-sector niches available. If nothing is done by 2023, Hong Kong could be 400,000 urn spaces short.

Better stay alive until the problem is solved!

RANDOM FACT 6

Graves More Expensive than Homes

If a family chooses to cremate their loved one's remains and put them in a public columbarium, they must wait four years and pay RM 12,000. There are currently over 21,800 deceased people on the waiting list. Private columbarium slots can cost upwards of RM 516,000. Lucky for us, all these is in fact in HK

In HK, luxurious homes cost about RM 7,800 per square foot, making it less expensive in many cases to house the living.

Right now, if a resident in Hong Kong is lucky, they can find a burial plot through their church if it has a private graveyard. A private plot, which is hard to come by, can cost up to RM 1,548,000. In public cemeteries, people can be buried for six years before they are exhumed by the government, cremated and thrown into a communal grave.

RANDOM FACT 7

With everything going Virtual Reality, so does DEATH!

Would YOU ride the 'death simulator'? Attraction designed to show you what it's like to be CREMATED opens in China.

Attraction in Shanghai offers people the chance to be virtually cremated
They then have to crawl through a latex womb on their hands and knees
Initial responses have been positive, with reports of a distinct shift in views
The entrepreneurs behind the venture explain that their goal is for people to come away with different view on life and to forget their problems

Video from Youtube Channel: HINDUSTAN TIMES

Follow them here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm7lHFkt2yB_WzL67aruVBQ

After the virtual cremation, the person moves from the slab and crawls through a latex womb on their hands and knees, simulating their rebirth. Responses so far have been positive, with some reporting coming to terms with life and death, and a distinct shift in their mind-set after the 'worthwhile' experience.

TALK ABOUT VIRTUAL REALITY.

RANDOM FACT 8

Sky Burial

One of the most bizarre funeral traditions still in practice. Sky burial or ritual dissection is a funerary practice in the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia. A human corpse is cut into small pieces and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements (mahabhuta) and animals – especially predatory birds. The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible. The majority of Tibetans and many Mongolians adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. They believed that there is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. Birds may eat it or nature may cause it to decompose.

RANDOM FACT 9

Hanging Cliff Burial

If I ask you to imagine a coffin, you probably think of a box in the ground. However, some Asian communities don’t share this perspective. They believe the closer the coffin is to the sky, the closer the spirit is to heaven. Seems logical I suppose. To achieve this, they hang their coffins on the side of cliffs. What are the chairs doing there as well? The body is often placed in the house of the family for about a week, sitting in a chair, which in the end gets placed on the cliff with the coffin.

This ancient ritual practiced by the old Chinese Dynasties involved the displaying of coffins on high rock cliffs. They believe that coffins need to be close to the sky so that their dead can be closer to heaven. The coffins were actually discovered by the archaeologists among the remains of these ancient civilizations. Setting of coffins meant that the still thought of their dead in the highly respectable positions and their ghosts and spirits are free to roam around the hills and rocks.

RANDOM FACT 10

Tien Bao Memorial Garden Ipoh

Yes, this blog is created by our staff and also yes we need to create awareness about our privately owned columbarium located in the heart of Ipoh. Therefore, Ramdon Fact 10 belongs to us:-

Did you know?

Tien Bao Memorial Garden is the ONLY privately owned columbarium with air conditioning located NEAREST to Ipoh Town.

Please do come check us or you can just watch this video:-

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SOURCES

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2019273/hong-kongs-dead-should-not-have-wait-line-urn-space

http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat13/sub85/item320.html

http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat3/sub14/entry-4323.html

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-unusual-death-rituals.php

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/04/24/401896663/chinas-latest-target-funeral-strippers

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3522942/Would-ride-death-simulator-Attraction-designed-s-like-cremated-opens-China.html

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/444363/Chinese-dead-baby-shocks-crematorium-workers-by-waking-up-and-crying

http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/dead-chinese-baby-awakes-just-before-cremation-1275454

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3515806/Laptops-mansions-helicopters-weirdest-paper-offerings-Chinese-people-burn-deceased-ensure-happy-afterlife.html