Too expensive to die!

Too expensive to die!
Apr 5, 2008 03:51
FRANKENSTEIN Points: Join Date: Nov 29, 2004 Status: offline	Cemetery Plot Prices in Beijing Overtake Apartments (Update1) By Dune Lawrence April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese consumers, facing the fastest inflation in 11 years, are finding that the rising cost of living has reached into the afterlife as buying a graveyard plot becomes more expensive than a home. Five of the capital's major cemeteries charge as much as 30,000 yuan ($4,273) per square meter for a standard plot, compared with an average of 20,000 yuan per square meter for an apartment in the city center, the English-language China Daily reported today. Land scarcity, real-estate speculation and rapid urbanization are fueling soaring prices for graveyard plots as an increasingly affluent population seeks to provide deceased loved ones with a more lavish send-off. The government issued rules in November aimed at encouraging cremation and stamping out profiteering in tomb prices. The issue is particularly sensitive as the world's most populous nation prepares to observe the Qingming, or tomb sweeping, festival on April 4. The government designated the ritual as a national holiday for the first time this year. To pay their respects, Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors to make offerings of food, flowers and fake money. Burning effigies of houses and cars for use in the afterlife has become increasingly popular as average incomes have risen. November's rules call on areas with high population density and a shortage of land to cremate the dead rather than bury them. They also ban urban residents from buying burial plots in rural cemeteries, prohibit the building of cemeteries on arable land, forest land and city parks, and impose fines of up to three times any profit gained from breaking the rules. Casket Costs The regulations will be ``fine-tuned'' by the end of this year, after 110,000 ``suggestions'' were received from the public, Dou Yupei, vice minister for civil affairs, said during a Web cast on the central government's Web site today to urge people to ``show civilized behavior'' during the Qingming festival. He didn't provide details. Funeral costs are also rising, the China Daily reported. A marble casket costs about 3,000 yuan at the Babaoshan Funeral Home in Beijing, roughly the same as the average monthly wage in the capital in 2006. A basic funeral in the southern city of Shenzhen costs at least 4,000 yuan, according to the newspaper. Inflation in China has quickened to the fastest pace in 11 years as pork prices almost doubled in the past year and soybean oil jumped 64 percent. Overall housing prices in 70 major cities surged 11.3 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest increase since at least 2005, when records began, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Prices climbed 10.9 percent in February. About 13 million people migrate to China's cities each year from the countryside, Qi Ji, vice minister of China's new housing ministry said last month.

Apr 5, 2008 03:51

FRANKENSTEIN
Points:
Join Date: Nov 29, 2004
Status: offline

Cemetery Plot Prices in Beijing Overtake Apartments (Update1)

By Dune Lawrence

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese consumers, facing the fastest inflation in 11 years, are finding that the rising cost of living has reached into the afterlife as buying a graveyard plot becomes more expensive than a home.

Five of the capital's major cemeteries charge as much as 30,000 yuan ($4,273) per square meter for a standard plot, compared with an average of 20,000 yuan per square meter for an apartment in the city center, the English-language China Daily reported today.

Land scarcity, real-estate speculation and rapid urbanization are fueling soaring prices for graveyard plots as an increasingly affluent population seeks to provide deceased loved ones with a more lavish send-off. The government issued rules in November aimed at encouraging cremation and stamping out profiteering in tomb prices.

The issue is particularly sensitive as the world's most populous nation prepares to observe the Qingming, or tomb sweeping, festival on April 4. The government designated the ritual as a national holiday for the first time this year.

To pay their respects, Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors to make offerings of food, flowers and fake money. Burning effigies of houses and cars for use in the afterlife has become increasingly popular as average incomes have risen.

November's rules call on areas with high population density and a shortage of land to cremate the dead rather than bury them. They also ban urban residents from buying burial plots in rural cemeteries, prohibit the building of cemeteries on arable land, forest land and city parks, and impose fines of up to three times any profit gained from breaking the rules.

Casket Costs

The regulations will be ``fine-tuned'' by the end of this year, after 110,000 ``suggestions'' were received from the public, Dou Yupei, vice minister for civil affairs, said during a Web cast on the central government's Web site today to urge people to ``show civilized behavior'' during the Qingming festival. He didn't provide details.

Funeral costs are also rising, the China Daily reported. A marble casket costs about 3,000 yuan at the Babaoshan Funeral Home in Beijing, roughly the same as the average monthly wage in the capital in 2006. A basic funeral in the southern city of Shenzhen costs at least 4,000 yuan, according to the newspaper.

Inflation in China has quickened to the fastest pace in 11 years as pork prices almost doubled in the past year and soybean oil jumped 64 percent. Overall housing prices in 70 major cities surged 11.3 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest increase since at least 2005, when records began, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Prices climbed 10.9 percent in February.

About 13 million people migrate to China's cities each year from the countryside, Qi Ji, vice minister of China's new housing ministry said last month.

Apr 5, 2008 03:54	#1
FRANKENSTEIN Points: Join Date: Nov 29, 2004 Status: Offline	After reading the article, I just have to say that "it is too expensive to die". The housing prices have been reaching the level that the public can't afford. Now, the cemetery plot prices are also unbearable. Really absurd!

Apr 5, 2008 09:26	#2
GARYKINKADE Points: Join Date: Jan 8, 2008 Status: Offline	They(whose they?) have got us figured out from the time we are born till the time we die. And the name of the game is "charge whatever the market will bear"

Apr 5, 2008 14:31	#3
GRIZ326 Points: Join Date: Jun 12, 2006 Status: Offline	I think the answer is to live forever! hehehe My will calls for me to be cremated, my ashes to be put in a plastic container and scattered from the top of a local mountain. Is there a reason that a Chinese person would not consider cremation?

Apr 5, 2008 15:38	#4
GARYKINKADE Points: Join Date: Jan 8, 2008 Status: Offline	Unfortunately, there are no mountains in this area, that best that can be done would be to paint a scene from the "Rockies" or "Grand Teutons" on the side of my detached garage, to be seen from the back porch.Such is life.

Apr 5, 2008 22:27

JIMMYB
Points:
Join Date: Feb 7, 2007
Status: Offline

"Is there a reason that a Chinese person would not consider cremation?"

Yes, Girz. In most cities, cremation has been implemented well. However, in some rural places, peopel still bury the dead. Haven't heard of 入土为安? In English, it referes to Earth is the best shelter. Influenced by traditional concept, many people think that cremation is too cruel because nothing will be left except a small box of ashes. They just want to keep their relative's bodies intact. Thus, burying in earth is a good choice.

Indeed, it is expensive to die. On other hand, it is also expensive to live too because the housing prices and medical treatment fee are too high and unbearable. Life really sucks!

Apr 6, 2008 00:51

GRIZ326
Points:
Join Date: Jun 12, 2006
Status: Offline

Life is as good as you make it, JimmyB. I was sad to see you write that "life sucks." It can be frustrating and often very difficult, but life does not have to "suck."

It is so easy to get caught up in the pursuit of material things and looking at all that you do not have. It must certainly be true in China in ways that I cannot understand. And inflation makes this concern even more troubling to a thinker like you.

Whenever those thoughts get into my head I work to push the thoughts away by thinking about the important things that I do have. Things like: good health, a job, friends and family. Cherish the good and life becomes sweet. It helped me to get through many rough years in my life.

Over time you will build a life that does not "suck" and gets a little bit better every day.

Apr 6, 2008 21:30	#7
JIMMYB Points: Join Date: Feb 7, 2007 Status: Offline	Griz, thank you very much. I think that I should draw my attention to the bright side of life. I am a little bit pessimistic. Don't worry! I will try to be optimistic :-)

Post a Reply to: Too expensive to die!