Quarterly NEWSLETTER Human Remains Repatriation from/to CHINA www.roseates.com

Few foreign expats choose to be buried in China

Staying in China for eternity

No 24, Second Quarter 2014

THE ROSEATES NEWSLETTER Your guide to human remains repatriation The Roseates Newsletter aims to update our clients and contacts on various topics related to the death of foreigners in China and Chinese abroad. The target audience includes consulates, foreign funeral directors and insurance companies. We welcome our readers to provide questions, comments and insights.

Beijing Expatriates Cemetery

CONTENTS Introduction: The Roseates Expats are coming to China in ever-greater numbers, but only Newsletter, your guide to human remains repatriation a few plan and are able to spend eternity here, the China Feature: Staying in China for Daily reported. Fallen leaves return to their roots, according eternity to an old Chinese saying, referring to most people's wish to Q&A: Answers to all your be buried in their place of origin. But some prefer to stay in China after death. Years ago, China had cemeteries that were questions Policies: More supervision of exclusively for foreigners, mainly in cities that had foreign mortuaries called for concessions. But in recent years, China has restricted the Compulsory cremation leads burial of foreigners. Simultaneously, cremation has become the more common option, and international shipping of bodies to suicides has become more practical. Cemeteries that were formerly for Culture: Sea burials on the rise foreigners only are now open to Chinese people who wish to find eternal rest in an international community. At the Beijing Extinct animal species also Expatriates Cemetery, formerly the capital's largest cemetery worthy to be honored for expatriates, nearly 5,000 Chinese have been buried since New funerals: biodegradable 1996. Shanghai Wanguo Cemetery, which holds the graves of urns placed under trees Business: Technology can more than 600 foreigners, is now part of the Soong Chingbring the dead virtually to life Ling Mausoleum Park, where Soong Ching-ling, whose In Hong Kong, all the money husband Dr Sun Yat-sen was the founding father of the first in the world will not buy a republic of China, lies buried together with other notable final resting place Chinese. “It is nearly impossible for foreigners who have no The last word relative in China to have their remains buried here now,” Roseates introduction & Roseates’ director Wilfried Verbruggen, told the China Daily. contact info In 2008, the Ministry of Civil Affairs released a regulation that largely banned the burying of foreigners' remains in China, although there are exceptions. (continued on page 2)

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(continued from page 1) “It looks like more foreigners want to be buried in China,” said Xiao Chenglong, deputy director of the 101 Research Institute under the Ministry of Civil Affairs. “We should give them access if that is what they hope for.” Shanghai Wanguo Cemetery accepts applications for the burial of foreigners, but the criteria are high, said Li Chuntao, director of cultural relics preservation of the Soong Ching-Ling Mausoleum's administration. “The people buried here have to have made exceptional contributions to society, and the applications must be approved by the municipal government,” he said. As cremation becomes more the norm and logistics improve, foreigners increasingly choose to have their ashes or bodies shipped home. The National Funeral Association has set up a nationwide network for international body repatriation and transports about 1,800 remains a year. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number is six times the average of the early 1990s. Verbruggen, who has been involved with body repatriation for nearly eight years, said his business increases by 15 to 20 percent annually. On a personal note, he said he would like to return home after death. “My wish is that my body will be buried in Belgium, my native country; very simple, and I hope my family and friends will have a party! It's no big deal, no need for grief. We are born to die,” he said.

Q&A How many people visited cemeteries in Beijing during this year's Qingming festival? According to the Beijing Funeral Management Center, Beijing’s 163 public cemeteries received about 577,000 visitors on April 5, a year-on-year increase of 13.4 percent. The numbers were even higher on April 6. Most cemeteries are in remote locations, beyond the reach of public transportation, leading to severe traffic jams.

What can families unable to pay their respects to the deceased do? Since 2008, public cemeteries and service providers began to offer tomb sweeping services, charging fees of up to 800 yuan (€94). Video The cemeteries for foreigners that have survived over the recordings of the cleaning past century serve as a testimony to history and a bond of process are made for the international friendship. In Shanghai, Huaihai Park and Jing'an customers. However, demand Park used to be cemeteries in the International Settlement, for the services has been where more than 4,300 people were buried, 93 percent of declining in the past years. them foreigners. Beijing had cemeteries for the French, British, Russians, Japanese and Portuguese in 1929, as well Which Chinese VIPs had their as an international cemetery. A number of famous foreigners ashes scattered over land or － such as George Hatem (1910-88), a doctor from the United sea? States who became a Chinese citizen－ are buried in Some of the most famous Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. Edgar Snow (1905-72), a include Zhou Enlai, the first U.S. journalist and the author of “Red Star over China”, is premier of the People's buried on the campus of Peking University. The capital also Republic; former president Liu has tombs of Christian missionaries, such as Matteo Ricci Shaoqi; former vice premier (1552-1610) and Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666). Deng Xiaoping; and writer Ba Jin. The Beijing municipal government established an expats' cemetery in the northeast outskirts of the city in 1952. It is When was the first foreigners' now known as Beijing Expatriate Cemetery, where foreigners' cemetery established in remains were moved to from old gravesites. At one time, China? about 1,400 foreigners lay buried at Beijing Expatriate In 1846, Great Britain Cemetery, but now there are only about 30－ as most of the established the first one in other graves were damaged during the Cultural Revolution Shanghai. In 1952, it was (1966-76). Shanghai Wanguo Cemetery in Changning district demolished to build a holds the graves of more than 600 foreigners from 26 stadium. The Soviet Soldiers' Western and Asian countries. Nearly 5,000 Chinese and Cemetery, which occupies prominent foreigners were buried there, but all of the graves 48,000 square meters in were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution except for Lushun, Liaoning province, is those of Soong Ching-ling’s parents. All foreigners' remains in China's biggest foreigners' Shanghai have been moved to the cemetery. cemetery, with 1,323 graves.

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POLICIES

More supervision of mortuaries called for Not only does the sale of funeral and interment products make huge profits for mortuaries, some also pay first-aid personnel to deliver remains. Those practices should be regulated as soon as possible, according to the Beijing News. One open secret about hospital mortuaries is that most of them are operated by private companies nowadays. As private companies they will try their best to make money from the bereaved families. These companies may lose their basic humanity faced with the extravagant profits that can be made from funeral and interment products, the Beijing News commented. Not only do they make money by continually raising the prices of their products and services, they also form illegal industrial

chains by bribing medical staff. One important reason for the malpractice is that the business comes under the supervision of many different parties, including hospitals, hygiene departments, commercial administrative departments and civil affairs departments, but in fact none of those parties really supervises the mortuaries. There are no regulations covering hospital mortuaries. Government departments also seldom exercise quality and management control over the industry. Therefore, the various departments should cooperate and coordinate with each other in managing the funeral business. Beijing has eight hospital mortuaries to try out unified limited price and service standards, the Beijing News said.

Compulsory cremation leads to suicides At least six elderly villagers in Anhui province reportedly took their own lives in May before a new policy was introduced making cremation compulsory. According to traditional Chinese beliefs, a deceased person’s body must be buried intact in the ground for the soul to rest in peace, but as part of a nationwide campaign, the Anqing city government has ruled that from June bodies must be cremated. Several elderly people committed suicide to ensure that their remains would be buried, it was reported, although civil affairs officials in Anhui denied this, rejecting any link between the deaths and the reform. They also rejected claims that township officials went to villagers’ homes to forcibly dismantle coffins that had already been made for elderly family members. The government is encouraging people to hand over coffins and promises to pay between

800 and 1500 yuan (€94~177). Beijingbased lawyer Zheng Daoli said the coffin removals were illegal because they were the property of their owners. People in Anqing – who spent up to a decade preparing their coffins – were only informed of the burial ban on March 25, about two months before the new regulations were due to come into force. One person was quoted as saying: “I've had a hard life, and when I'm dead I'd like to sleep somewhere protected from the rain – inside a coffin.” One resident however admitted that “some of the elderly insist on being buried because of a deeply rooted superstition. It is still very hard to persuade them to accept new concepts.” In some villages, the remains are placed in a coffin in a shed on a hill for at least three years before finally being buried as it is believed that the practice can bring good luck to the descendants of the deceased.

CULTURE

Sea burials on the rise More Chinese families are opting to bury their loved ones at sea because of the recent rise in local government subsidies and services. He Qingxun, director of the burial and funeral management division at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said that more urban residents are choosing sea burials, encouraged by local

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governments. “Many coastal areas and some inland cities with convenient access to the sea have been promoting sea burials among the public,” he said. In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, governments are now offering free sea burials or cash subsidies to families. In recent years, interest in sea burials has

peaked around the Qingming festival or Tomb Sweeping Day, which fell on April 5 this year. The Beijing Bureau of Civil Affairs is offering free transportation, food and beverages for a half-day trip to the Port of Tianjin, and the organizers also provide flowers and butterflies as part of the service. Flowers petals are scattered in the ocean while butterflies are released to create a solemn moment. Beijing began promoting sea burials in 1994. Wang Dedong, director of the Beijing Funeral Service Center, said the number of families opting for the service is expected to double to 2,400 compared with 2013. “Previously, only a few young people or those in financial difficulties would choose sea burials, but the situation is changing. Now officials, welleducated people and those from other

backgrounds are comfortable with it,” he said. The practice accounts for about 2 percent of the annual funerary services sector but “future prospects are very promising”. The Beijing Funeral Service Center is the only service provider in Beijing authorized to perform sea burials. It waives all service fees for Beijing residents but charges 380 yuan (€45) for those without a Beijing permanent resident permit. Director Wang added that the service is not available for foreigners yet, the China Daily reported. The scattering of ashes at sea is also becoming more popular in other Chinese cities. In Shanghai, more than 28,000 residents have been buried at sea since the government began promoting it in 1991. According to official statistics, the service has helped to save 8.3 hectares of land.

Extinct animal species also worthy to be honored Some people feel that not only deceased family members should be honored, but also extinct animal species. In 1999, Guo Geng established the World Extinct Wildlife Cemetery in Beijing's Nanhaizi Milu Park, also known as David's Deer Reserve, located in the capital's Daxing district. “Dead relatives and ancestors should not be the only ones honored on Tomb Sweeping Day. The animals also deserve to be remembered because they are our friends,” said Guo, deputy director of the Milu Ecological Research Center in the park. The cemetery, built along a kilometerlong road, consists of 100 tombstones arranged like dominos. Carved on the stones are animals' names and dates of extinction.

Guo said the domino-style arrangement illustrates how the extinction of one animal may endanger several other related species. The place is also designed to enhance public awareness of the need to protect wildlife. No animals are actually buried in the cemetery, but it offers a place to honor them. The idea of commemorating extinct animals came to Guo about 15 years ago, when he was a keeper of chimpanzees at the Beijing Breeding Center for Endangered Animals. At that time, many visitors were curious about 24 empty animal rooms in the center and Guo started to spread awareness about animal protection, the China Daily reported.

New funerals: biodegradable urns placed under trees A cemetery in Shanxi province is leading the way in the nationwide drive to make funerals more frugal and green. The Xianjuyuan Cemetery in Taiyuan is promoting free nontraditional “tree funerals”. In these special funerals, the ashes of a cremated loved one are placed under a tree in a biodegradable urn. The container and its contents will eventually become part of the soil nourishing the tree. As the Chinese Communist Party is continuing its drive to combat extravagance－ launched in 2012－ people have curbed their spending on family funerals, traditionally viewed as a measurement of filial piety, but also of wealth and social standing. The growth

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of the economy in recent decades has also led to more luxurious funerals, which can place a significant financial burden on the bereaved. A tree funeral normally costs 1,000 yuan (€118) while the cost of a more conventional one in Taiyuan can range from 20,000 to 80,000 yuan (€2,356~9,423). The cemetery offered free tree funerals during the Qingming festival and is planning to offer more on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar to mark the Ghost Festival, which falls on August 10 this year. More than 10,000 bodies are cremated in Taiyuan every year, but only 3,000 green funerals have been held there.

BUSINESS

Technology can bring the dead virtually to life While gravestones have not changed much in hundreds of years, in some cemeteries smartphone users will be able to scan the quick response (QR) codes on some gravestones to access a webpage that provides information about the deceased, including stories, pictures, videos and guest books. “A tombstone with a QR code records memories of love,” Hu Jianbo, founder of Shanghai Muoyi Technology Co, told China Daily. The firm specializes in QR codes for tombstones. All gravestones have basic information, such as a person's name, year of birth and death. But QR codes, discreetly placed behind a small piece of glass, allow people to find out more about the deceased, including photographs as well as favorite stories and songs, Hu said. Visitors can also express their sympathy to the family via an online condolence book. Since the company started operations in December 2012, more than 160,000 QR code-enabled tombstones have been sold across the country, mainly in the provinces of Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang as

well as Shanghai. It costs 399 yuan (€47) to put a QR code on a gravestone. But widespread acceptance of its use is still some way off. Chen Hui, director of Nanshan Cemetery in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said only one tombstone had a QR code. Some feel that scanning tombstones with cellphones might be showing disrespect to the dead, while it may also leak private information about the family of the decreased. Zhang Zhaolin, general manager of waheaven.com, an online cemetery information site in China, said the lack of network coverage in most graveyards may be another barrier to market development. At waheaven.com, users can build elaborate web shrines decked out with flickering candles, images of bouquets and pots of incense. For Qing Ming, users flooded the site with tens of thousands of virtual tributes, ranging from GIFs of animated white lotuses to drummers dressed in white and pictures of the favorite food of the departed. The company says it currently has more than 3.4 million users.

In Hong Kong, all the money in the world will not buy a final resting place There is still a severe shortage of cemeteries in Hong Kong, a city where more than 40,000 people die each year. Plots in existing cemeteries may only come available every few years. “In Hong Kong, people cannot buy a final resting place even if they have all the money in the world,” said Hoi Pong Kwok, funeral director at Heung Fok Undertaker. In land-hungry Hong Kong, burial plots have to be vacated after six years or remains will be exhumed by the government, cremated and put in a communal grave. 90 percent of the city’s dead were cremated in 2013, up from 38 percent in 1975, but securing a niche in a public columbarium can take up to five years. There are officially more than 21,800 deceased on the waiting list for a space, which costs more than 3,000 Hong Kong dollar (€284). Funeral service providers say there are a further 100,000 urns stored at funeral homes or companies, some of which are also waiting for plots. Those who can’t

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stand the wait must pay as much as 1 million Hong Kong dollar (€94,800) for a niche about the size of a sheet of A4 paper in a privately-owned crematorium. At Lung Shan Temple in Fanling district, a private plot measuring 160 square centimeters with “the most auspicious position” costs 1.8 million Hong Kong dollar (€170,600), which means that it is more expensive to house the dead than the living. Midas International Holdings and Sage International Group are promoting graveyards in provinces on the Chinese mainland and Macao. But prices for permanent burial sites in Guangdong had also jumped to about 200,000 yuan (€23,600), the Shanghai Daily reported. The Hong Kong government has recently decided to better regulate private columbariums. Under the bill, only licensed ones can trade in niche places. Those built before 1990 may be exempted on the condition that there will be no more intake.

THE LAST WORD ● The remains of 437 Chinese soldiers killed during the Korean War (1950-53) were returned from South Korea to China for final burial at the Shenyang Cemetery for Revolutionary Martyrs before the Qingming festival on April 5. A state ceremony for the war dead was held, attended by Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. South Korean President Park Geun-hye offered to return the remains as a goodwill gesture during a visit to Beijing last June. ● 636 people whose cremated remains were unclaimed, in some cases for years, received a dignified funeral and burial on March 16 in Xuchang, Henan province. Escorted by cemetery staff members, the urns were buried in a grave surrounded by cypress trees. ● Traditional paper offerings, which used to be burnt for the deceased, have moved with the times, from paper money, cakes and fruit, TVs and cars, to iPhones, luxury liquor, education certificates and mistress dolls. Some have criticized the practice, saying that burning paper replicas polluted the environment. “Fashion and extravagance blemish our ancestors’ souls and disturb their afterlife peace,” said Wu Guanghui, a cross culture scholar at Xiamen University. ● Civil servants in Guangdong are now required to seek the anti-graft authority’s approval before holding weddings or funerals and to disclose how much they would spend for these events 10 working days in advance. ● Li Chuncheng, 58, former deputy party secretary of Sichuan province, reportedly paid millions of yuan to a geomancer to find a good place for his family’s tomb and hired Taoist priests to cast a spell to bring descendants good luck. As he also accepted bribes, he was sacked and kicked out of the Communist Party. FIXED GUIDELINES IN CASE OF DEATH ● ● ● ●

Provide the complete name, date of birth and nationality of the deceased. Provide the name and telephone number of the person in China who first reported the death (hospital, public security bureau, embassy, travel agent, friend,...) Provide the place of death: district, city, prefecture and/or county and province. Indicate, if known, whether the deceased was covered by an insurance policy.

ROSEATES INTRODUCTION & CONTACT INFO PARTNER OF THE CHINA NATIONAL FUNERAL ASSOCIATION

ROSEATES China Tel 0086 13911075392 Fax 0086 10 87955196 Email [email protected] Web site www.roseates.com

Coordination and management of the entire repatriation process of human remains from/to mainland China: Hospital – Public Security – Consulate – China Funeral Home – Crematory – Airline – Funeral Director at Destination – Insurer – Next of Kin Legal Formalities – Storage – Autopsy – Embalmment – Coffin – Cremation – Urn – Inland Transportation – Quarantine – International Transportation – Daily Update of Progress

THE ROSEATES NEWSLETTER The Roseates Newsletter is edited by Michel Lens, who is based in Beijing and can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected]. Disclaimer: the views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of Linga International or its management. © Linga International, Belgium.

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