Brush with death challenges cultural taboo

By Wang Ruoyao, Lai Yuchen and Weng Ye (Xinhua) 20:52, April 04, 2014

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Liu Yan (not her real name) was hard pressed to describe how it felt to see the ashes of astranger being taken out of a cremator.

"I just thought, 'Well, that's the last stop of our life'," said Liu, a 67-year-old retiredphysician in Guangzhou City, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

Liu was among over 20 visitors who visited the city's funeral home for its first-ever openday, a week prior before Tomb-Sweeping Day this Saturday, an occasion for Chinesepeople to pay their respects to their ancestors.

In January, the provincial civil affairs department ordered more than 20 funeral parlors indifferent cities of Guangdong to allow citizens a one-day tour of their forbidden zonesbefore the festival.

The move made the headlines since death largely remains a taboo in China, with funeralhomes regarded as mysterious and inauspicious.

Although the original intention behind the open day was to promote cremation, given thatburials are popular in backward areas, and frugal memorial services, the event gaveparticipants a rare glimpse of death.

"The 25 places were filled within a day. We had six applicants in their 20s and eight over60," said Li Zhijian, a spokesman for the funeral home, the country's largest which handled30,000 bodies per year.

In addition to the cremation, Liu and other citizens also watched the work of a mortuarycosmetician.

Doctors stood by in case some would feel that was "too much" for them, but fortunatelyeverything went smoothly, Li said, adding the activity drew positive response fromparticipants, the public and media.

"The experience inspired me to live my life well and to be more positive, after all it's goodto be alive," said a 20-something male participant in Guangzhou.

The civil affairs department has decided to make an open day of funeral homes an annualevent.

DON'T SAY IT

The extraordinary tour, however, made Liu a target of gossip among her acquaintances,which is why we can't use her real name. Her trouble does not seem incomprehensible in asociety where people are not comfortable talking about death.

Chinese people's view on life and death has been deeply influenced by Confucius who askedhis disciple, "if you don't know what life is, how will you understand death?" LiangShuming, a renowned Chinese philosopher in the 20th century, concluded the core conceptof Confucianism is "life".

In the eyes of Chinese, discussions on death are fruitless and unpleasant and they usuallyavoid saying the words "death" and "die", according to Ai Jun, an expert of Chinesefolklore.

In the Chinese language, there are more than a dozen alternatives to the verb "die".Chinese words "chen" and "fan", meaning sink and capsize respectively, are taboos forboatmen and fishermen due to their associations with death. What's more, any mention ofdeath in a hospital would be offensive.

Chinese scholars also lack passion about death-related studies compared with their foreigncounterparts, said Chen Yinfa, an associated researcher with the Chinese Academy ofSocial Sciences.

Chen said, for example, the English edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a famousmasterpiece of Guru Padmasambhava, was first published in 1927 and over 520,000copies have been sold since then, while the Chinese version came decades later.

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（Editor：GaoYinan、Yao Chun）