Chinese burial party

A few weeks before I arrived at the Chinese border area in Hong Kong – at a time when I was blissfully unaware that such a place existed! Laurie had an office in place on the jigsaw area of recently acquired Chinese family plots that were being fenced around, and foundations were being put in place for the large buildings and plant that was to become a reinforced concrete pipe manufacturing plant.
Laurie's story follows...

One day a typical local funerary procession arrived at the new main gate and demanded to be allowed in, with the intention of burying the coffin at a spot roughly in the centre of the main construction area. The fact that all the previous landowners had negotiated a settlement and departed, together with any of their deceased relatives remains from the area, was now being contested. The recently deceased had made it clear on his deathbed that despite any prior arrangements, he wished to be buried in the old family plot! The Chinese construction foreman made it clear to Laurie that any confrontation could lead to extreme problems all around but, it was pointed out that a financial settlement wasn't out of the question! As all the workers on site had ceased work and sat dawn at first sight of the burial party, he was persuaded to ring head office Hong Kong and ask the previous long time Australian owner (married to a local Chinese woman) what steps he should take to end the debacle, and was quickly told that US$1000 would allow the purchase of an even more desirable burial site.

It must be explained that this particular location was gifted with very desirable Feng Shui qualities (a combination of direction, water location, prevailing wind direction and many other somewhat nebulous properties) and the whole surrounding area was dotted with family shrines that varied from simple painted concrete markers to quite large edifices. Most had a lonely existence except for one particular day each year, when the Sweeping of the Graves saw them repainted in red, white and gold lettering. This took place at the driest time of the year and the surrounding tall grass would be set alight by all the individual families concerned – this invariably resulted in raging uncontrollable grass fires that burned everything in their paths, a sort of annual Black Friday!

But back to the factory site! Laurie approached the leader of the funeral party with his office girl as interpreter and pointed out that a generous gift of money would enable him to purchase a much better site in the surrounding area to inter his relative, but after a prolonged discussion it was pointed out that such a decision could not be made till after the sun had set, and so the matter rested (as did every Chinese worker in sight!). Eventually a sum of money changed hands and the procession departed to an unknown destination! End of Laurie's story.

Even after the factory had been built and was producing, there was still an area away from the main buildings that, while it could not be built upon, was traversed continually by trucks and machinery – no owner could be found for this particular plot. There was always the chance that some long lost relative would turn up and demand an exorbitant price and if the plot had been built upon, the litigation would have been beyond imagination! One of the first things that I noted when I arrived on site, was several earthenware pots on high ground, just outside the perimeter fence, the factory site having been bulldozed level. These pots were the receptacles in which the bones of the deceased rested. After having been exhumed following a period underground, the individual bones would be cleaned and packed in these jars. I have no idea where the bones were eventually laid to rest, but in a country with over a billion people, it is very obvious that burial sites are at a very high premium.

In my time there, this led to a smart entrepreneur setting up a quiet business of selling burial plots in a spot that was regarded as one of the prime local sites, this was in a State owned forested slope, and of course very illegal, but he had made a small fortune before it became apparent that the trees were hiding a mass of new grave sites. He was apprehended and paid the price, but I never did hear how the swindled families fared. It could be truthfully stated that the deceased in China enjoy a much better status than a lot of the living, this once applied to a lot of the elderly living, but modern times have eroded family values in many cases (not confined to the Chinese people). Elderly people everywhere have suffered as a result.