Crowds of survivors protested outside the local disaster relief headquarters on Sunday night, after it emerged that victims had been cremated without their families’ approval. Local authorities apologized, but explained that they were not equipped to deal with so many dead bodies at once. From Xinhua:

“Why can’t I see my child for the last time?” Luo Yuanju, a migrant worker who hurried home after she got the tragic news that she had lost 29 relatives in the landslide, told the Beijing News. “This cremation was done without our approval. Why couldn’t the authorities wait for one or two days?”

[…] Government authorities had cremated all the bodies by Sunday, triggering anger from the victims’ families. According to the tradition of the village, where dwellers are mostly members of the Yi ethnic minority, the bodies of the dead are usually buried instead of cremated.

Lei Chuying, deputy head of Zhenxiong county, said cremation orders were given due to consideration of epidemic prevention and people’s feelings.

“Many parts of the bodies were missing while the buried were dug out,” Lei said, “The painful scene might cause trauma among relatives.”

An official investigation quickly concluded that the landslide was an entirely natural disaster, but local authorities have still faced criticism over their lack of preparedness. From Global Times:

Jiang Xingwu, a geological expert in Yunnan, told a press conference on Saturday afternoon that the area’s steep incline of 35 to 50 degrees and the composition of the soil made it prone to landslides.

Jiang said that the earthquakes with magnitudes of 5.7 and 5.6 which hit neighboring Yiliang county in September 2012 were also a cause, and the continued rainy and snowy weather over the past month led to the saturation of the slope, with gravity eventually causing the landslide.

The People’s Daily, a flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Sunday questioned why there wasn’t any early warning given the prolonged rainy and snowy weather over the past month.

[…] Also of concern was the fact that a 2010 geological disaster prevention plan by the Zhenxiong government showed that the local government had compiled files for 184 hazardous sites including 29 major ones areas, but Gaopo village was not on the list.

In addition, some locals continued to voice suspicions that nearby mining activity was really to blame. From Xinhua:

Some villagers believe the landslide may have been triggered by a gas explosion, and they doubt the experts’ conclusion that the coal mine boundary was 500 meters away from the landslide.

“The mining area is right beneath the landslide,” a coal miner in Gaopo said, as quoted by media on Monday.

Witnesses told Xinhua they saw “earth and rocks sprayed up into the air” when the landslide occurred. At the same time, some other villagers said they had not been to the scene and only heard about the “explosion” from others.

[…] Wang Shijun, another person who lost family in the landslide, said a big crack appeared before the landslide. “Big enough to swallow a bull.”

However, some villagers said the crack was 1 meter wide and some said a half meter wide, while others said there was no crack.

Update: Global Times reports that 72 of the villagers have written to the State Council requesting a second investigation into the cause of the landslide.

Luo Yuanshou, the brother of a victim, initiated the joint letter and sent to the State Council on Wednesday. The villagers believe the Gaopo coal mine, which is 500 meters from the landslide scene, could have played a role in the landslide. Villagers wondered why the hillside remained stable following a 50-day snowstorm in 2008.

Luo told the Global Times that the villagers are demanding the State Council order the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the China University of Geosciences to investigate the landslide. The original investigation “hastily concluded the landslide had nothing to do with the mine without even an on-site investigation of the mine. The hill was not that steep and is covered with vegetation,” said Luo.

Jiang Xingwu, who headed the original investigation, told the Global Times Wednesday that he stands by the results of his investigation, adding he understands that the villagers may want another opinion.

The preference for burial over cremation is not limited to the Yi: see ‘Henan Officials Commit a Grave Error‘ on CDT. Neither is Friday’s landslide the only apparently natural disaster for which human activity has been blamed: see ‘2008 Sichuan Earthquake Likely Man-Made‘.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coal mining, death, disaster relief, earthquakes, funerals, landslides, mining, natural disasters, State Council, Yunnan
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“They said the Maos won’t work,” Eric Shiner, director of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, said in an interview in Hong Kong. “This is disappointing because his imagery is so mainstream in Chinese contemporary art.”

A person familiar with the show, who asked not to be named because of the political sensitivity of the issue, confirmed the Mao works had been rejected by the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t immediately respond to faxed questions seeking comment today.

[…] According to the Christie’s auction website, Warhol chose Mao as “the ultimate star”, using an image of him taken from the portrait photograph reproduced in the Chairman’s so-called Little Red Book.

“He wasn’t being disrespectful,” Shiner said.

Christies’ Beatriz Ordovas commented that the portraits did “playfully subvert” the original image, its subject, and the personality cult that surrounded him. “These works were considered rare examples of a more political Warhol. However, it is likely that Warhol was drawn to Mao not through any Cold War connotations, but through the image’s mass appeal.”

Christies’ notes on a recently auctioned print further explain Warhol’s choice of Mao as the portraits’ subject:

Against the background of the Cold War and Nixon’s visit to China, the figure of Mao was one of the most reproduced images in the world. The origin of Warhol’s choice of this picture has traced back to a conversation between Warhol and the dealer Brubo Bischoftberger who suggested the idea of producing a series of work depicting the most important figure of the twentieth century, initially suggesting Albert Einstein. Thinking about this proposition, the artist is said to have replied, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea. But I was just reading in Life magazine that the most famous person in the world today is Chairman Mao. Shouldn’t he be the most famous person, Bruno?’

At Foreign Policy, Joshua Keating noted that Warhol’s incitement of playful subversion among Chinese artists may have influenced the decision to reject the prints:

Warhol was not a particularly political artist and was more interested in Mao’s status as a cultural icon than his actions or ideas. But some of China’s more daring contemporary artists have obviously been inspired by him. Ai Weiwei’s painting of a Coca-Cola logo on a Han dynasty vase is an obvious Warhol homage. There’s also pop art influence the work of the Gao brothers, whose most famous works depict Chairman Mao in a variety of compromising positions, including “as a kneeling penitent, with giant breasts, a detachable head, and in one of their most famous works, as a firing squad of clones about to execute Jesus Christ. “

[…] So while Warhol may never have intended his prints as a criticism of the Chairman, the authorities may not want any more subversive artists getting ideas.

There have also been recent calls for the real Mao to be removed from display in Beijing. The suggestion came amid efforts to reshape traditional funeral preferences, an issue brought to a head by a deeply unpopular campaign of grave-flattening to reclaim farmland in Henan. From The Economist:

Officials say it was not Mao’s wish for his body to be put on permanent display in a purpose-built hall covering nearly three hectares in the middle of Beijing. Soon after coming to power in 1949 he was reportedly the first leader to commit himself to being cremated, a practice advocated by the Communists who wanted to put an end to grave-building that wasted precious land. But despite the winding down of the cult of Mao in the years after his death in 1976, the mausoleum has remained inviolate. Calls for its dismantling have been all but taboo. Queues of tourists (especially Chinese ones) still form outside, eager for a glimpse of Mao’s waxen corpse.

[…] But an appeal by one scholar, Yuan Gang of Peking University, […] suggested that Mao’s body be removed from its “lavish” memorial hall in Tiananmen Square, cremated, and the ashes delivered to his ancestral home in Shaoshan in the central province of Hunan. This, said Mr Yuan in an article republished on several websites run by official newspapers, would allow Mao to “rest in peace forever” and give a boost to the government’s efforts to change burial customs. But his proposal is as likely to be adopted as farmers are to end their ancient practice of erecting higgledy-piggledy mounds on their tiny plots of land. In August a Beijing official confirmed (to the horror of some) that the government was likely to apply for the mausoleum to be listed by UNESCO as part of a World Heritage Site.

The portraits were previously the subject of controversy in 2009, when Obama critics took issue with a Warholian Mao ornament on one of the White House Christmas trees.

Beijing Cream has posted video from Warhol’s 1982 visit to China. The current exhibition, 15 Minutes Eternal, is showing at the Hong Kong Museum of Art until March 31.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Andy Warhol, art exhibition, artists, Beijing, funerals, Hong Kong, Mao portrait, Mao Zedong, Ministry of Culture, Shanghai
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Even many critics of the grave-razing program […] acknowledge that China needs to reform funeral practices (and, inevitably, encourage cremation) to meet growing land demands. What primarily offends these commentators is the brusque method used to clear away the graves in Zhoukou. On Nov. 19, Zhong Yongheng, a native of Zhoukou and a journalist with People’s Daily, the official, self-declared Communist Party mouthpiece, used his account on the Twitter-like Ten Cent microblog, to post his family’s experience with Zhoukou’s program. His family, he notes, no longer lives in Zhoukou but has relocated north to Beijing:

“You should give us notice at least before you damage our ancestral tombs, don’t you think? My family members are all in Beijing and didn’t get any advance notice from anyone. Then we suddenly received news that our ancestral tombs were leveled by an excavator. My parents turned toward the south, wailing.”

[…] So far, there’s no evidence that Zhoukou’s officials — or its government — will benefit financially from the grave- clearing program. On the contrary, the Beijing News has reported that some low-level government officials, under pressure to provide good examples for the farmers, have personally dug up their ancestors’ bones.

In one tragic case of a low-level official making an example of his ancestors, however, the digging dislodged a large tombstone that crashed onto two of his living family members, killing both. Sympathy was a rare sight in the several hundred comments left beneath the Beijing News story, many of which suggested that supernatural forces were at play. Meanwhile, other comments took a more vindictive approach, with one of the most repeated comments qualifying as the most direct: “Deserved it.”

At Global Times, Yu Jincui wrote that the “aggressive and showy tomb excavation campaign stinks to high heaven“, explained the depth of the taboo surrounding burial sites, and condemned the authorities’ heavy-handed attempt to overrule locals’ concerns.

In Chinese tradition, the removal of ancestral graves is the biggest insult one can endure, and those who excavate tombs are said to be subject to the most vicious curse.

[…] Considering the cultural and historical background of tombs and the importance they have for people, villagers’ resistance to their removal is not only understandable, but also predictable. In order for this plan to work, the government needs to both cooperate with and respect local residents.

[…] Those who excavate others’ tombs are traditionally considered to be cursed. The reputation of some historical figures is forever tainted by their merciless excavation of others’ tombs, such as Sun Dianying, a warlord in the 1920s who desecrated and looted the Eastern Royal Tombs of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In light of strong public opposition, tomb removal in many cities has been halted, including in Zhoukou.

I am afraid the efforts of these local officials are doomed to go down in history as a bad example in the tale of China’s funeral reform. China’s local governments should understand that using force to promote reform is no longer effective today. Leaders in Henan and other provinces should take time to reflect on this.

Caixin’s Wang Yong acknowledged the economic and political pressures on local officials and the need for reform of burial practices. But, he argued, the “tomb-flattening campaign” epitomised the “typical” Chinese approach of using a huge and inflexible bureaucracy to shunt economic development forward at all costs.

First, there are usually serious legal complications. In the case of forced tomb removal, article 20 of the Mortuary Service Administration Act says that improperly buried remains can be forcibly removed. But according to the Administration Enforcement Law that came to effect last January, the act has no authority to enforce the provision. If enforcement is to be implemented, an administrative decision must be made by the civil affairs officials and executed by a court.

Had the Henan authorities followed this procedure, even if they had enforced their “tomb-flattening policy” for 10 years, they wouldn’t have achieved much. Sadly, the political movement is often in total contradiction with the rule of law in China.

Second, value and cost calculations follow the internal logic of bureaucracy. Career promotion is the incentive and “political achievements” are the yardstick. Officials follow this without thinking of the interests of the community as a whole.

This is why even when scholars such as Yao Zhongqiu, a research fellow at Cathay Institute for Public Affairs, call for the protection of traditional Chinese culture and people’s freedom to worship, tradition still bears no weight in the face of the pressure placed on officials.

It is difficult to calculate the hidden social cost of people’s mental suffering. It does not affect officials’ “political achievements,” therefore it does not enter into their consideration.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: death, economic development, forced evictions, funerals, Henan, land reclamation, local corruption, local officials, tombs
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Medical personnel advocates complain that the more violent incidents are staged by hired thugs, paid by families of the deceased in hopes of winning compensation from the hospitals. Sometimes the protesters are from the same village or are semi-professionals in causing trouble. The Chinese have even coined a word for the paid protesters: yinao, meaning “medical disturbance.”

“It has become a very sophisticated system for chasing profits. Whenever somebody dies in a hospital, the yinao will get in touch with the family and offer their services in exchange for 30% to 40%,” said Liu Di, who is setting up a social network for medical professionals.

There is more to the practice than pure opportunism, however:

Zhang Yuanxin, an Urumqi-based plaintiffs’ lawyer, said it was difficult to sue for medical malpractice, even in the most egregious cases, and that tempted people to take matters into their own hands.

“This is the direct result of the lack of rule of law and the lack of a well-established social welfare system,” Zhang said. “Conflicts like these are inevitable and there will be many more if people can’t solve their problems through the law.”

Global Times, meanwhile, reports the case of a Shanghai man who died unattended on an operating table when a fire broke out in the next room.

A 50-year-old patient undergoing a leg-amputation at a hospital in Shanghai Baoshan district on Wednesday night died on the operating table after he was left unattended for about 30 minutes, following a fire that broke out in the next room, the hospital confirmed on Thursday.

But local police declined to release details on Thursday, citing an ongoing investigation into the case.

The Shanghai No.3 People’s Hospital, meanwhile, said that it would take responsibility for the incident, if the probe determines that it erred in handling the situation properly ….

“Why wasn’t he at least given a mask?” [Zhu's wife] wondered.

She said that the family is not seeking compensation from the hospital at this time – they want to see the investigation results before making such a decision.

Sources:

Performing at funerals: professional mourners in Chongqing and Chengdu – Danwei
Hospital in China fends off angry mob – latimes.com
Unattended patient dies on table – Global Times

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: funerals, hospitals, medical malpractice, medical system, protesters
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Ever since Deng Xiaoping signaled in 1978 that it was fine to get rich, much of China has seemed hell-bent on that goal. But some local governments would like those who succeed not to lord it over others, at least when it comes to paying final respects.

As of last month, in the cemeteries of this hilly megalopolis in south central China, modest burial sites are in. Fancy tombs are out. And in some places, so are fancy funerals.

Plots for ashes are limited to 1.5 square meters, about 4 feet by 4 feet. Tombstones are supposed to be no higher than 100 centimeters, or 39 inches, although it is not clear that limit will be enforced. Sellers of oversize plots have been warned of severe fines, as much as 300 times the plot’s price.

“Ordinary people who walk by and see these lavish tombs might not be able to keep their emotions in balance,” said Zheng Wenzhong, as he visited the relatively modest resting place of a relative at The Temple of the Lighted Lamp cemetery. That is apparently exactly what many officials fear. After a quarter of a century in which the gap between rich and poor has steadily widened, the wretched excesses of the affluent are increasingly a Chinese government concern.

China’s income inequality, as measured by a standard called the Gini coefficient, is now on a par with some Latin American and African countries, according to the World Bank. Justin Yifu Lin, the bank’s chief economist, last year identified the growing disparity as one of China’s biggest economic problems.

© Paulina Hartono for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: funerals, tombs
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One can make a decent amount of money being a proxy mourner. The profession recently came to the attention of the public through the character Lu Zhixin, a professional wailer, in the popular TV adaptation of Cell Phone.

Wailers actually belong to an ancient profession that now keeps a low profile thanks to its singular characteristics. In Chongqing and Chengdu, wailers and their special bands have, over the course of more than a decade, developed into a professional, competitive market.

Studies show that wailers are predominantly laid-off workers. To support themselves, they rely on weeping and melancholy songs for their income. They and their bands believe that, like everyone else, they are engaging in a profession and performing a job.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: funerals
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It is the one business that is never short of clients, and 366 college graduates will this week find out if the city’s funeral industry is the answer to their desperate job search.

The students have all applied for more than 300 vacancies at 18 funeral homes and cemeteries, with pre-interview training to find out if any have what it takes to survive in the trade starting yesterday.

But despite being a business that has had little to fear from the global financial crisis, dealing with the dead is not everyone’s cup of cha. “Working in the industry is considered morbid and I hope you are fully prepared and make a sensible choice,” said Wang Hongjie, of the civil affairs bureau’s funeral and crematory division, as he addressed the hopefuls.

© Sophia Cao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: financial crisis 2008-2009, funerals, graduates, job markets, Shanghai
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In China these days, just about every form of commerce is thriving, including decidedly illegal ones like prostitution and counterfeiting. But not coffin making.

For centuries, this city’s Longevity Lane was the best-known place in China to buy top-quality cedar coffins. Legend has it that the city’s reputation was established when Liu Zhongyuan, a great poet of ninth-century China, died here in domestic exile and his body was placed in a cedar coffin for shipment to his home province in northern China. After a journey of six months, the poet’s body is said to have been as fresh as the day he died.

Ask for a coffin here these days, though, and a visitor is sent to a department store, where miniature mahogany coffins sell for $2 apiece as unlikely good-luck charms. Instead – Western executives worried about illegal copying, please take note – a strictly enforced ban prevents the sale of coffins in the city.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: death, funerals
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