Cemetery shortage in Shanghai

Monday is the second day of China's three-day Tomb-Sweeping Day Holiday when people across the country pay tribute to their deceased loved ones.

But as CRI's Ding Heng reports, in China's major first-tier city, Shanghai, citizens are finding it more and more difficult to get their deceased family members buried.

Data from the Shanghai authorities show that by the end of last year, more than 30 percent of the city's population were above the age of 60 - defined as senior citizens by the United Nations.

Each year, around 120-thousand senior citizens in the city pass away.

It is estimated the ratio of seniors will continue to hike until around 2040.

By then, the families of those who pass away are likely to faced with a dilemma.

Zhang Songjie is a researcher with the Shanghai Funeral Management Service Center, a government-affiliated institution.

"Shanghai has 44 commercial cemeteries, with more than 130 hectares of available land. Each year, around 6.6 hectares are being consumed. So, judging from the current pace, available land will be used up in 20 years from now."

Limited land resources, together with soaring prices, have pushed many Shanghai citizens to buy tombs in nearby areas, notably Suzhou, a second-tier city less than 100 kilometers away.

Ahead of the Tomb-Sweeping Day Holiday, however, Suzhou became the first city in China to ban people who don't have local household registration documents from purchasing local land for burial.

The new policy is seen by many as a way to prevent Shanghai citizens from buying up local land, which is also limited.

The authorities and cemeteries in Shanghai are currently working together to provide alternative burial options in order to save land.

Fushouyuan, which went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2013, is one such cemetery operator.

Yi Hua, manager of Fushouyuan, explains one of its newly-developed programs, something she calls "ecological burials".

"So here is a 200-square meter garden. It is different from traditional tomb structure. Bone ashes can be kept inside the small units in the garden, or buried under the lawn. According to the past standards, such an area could only hold 30 tombs. Now, it has a capacity for 200."

Meanwhile, the cemetery is also promoting the idea of "indoor burial", namely placing people's ashes inside one room.

Yi Hua says such a burial model means that when people pay tribute to the dead, they need to do work that is more akin to house-cleaning, instead of tomb sweeping.

Many of these alternatives, which are sometimes contrary to China's traditions, are still hard for people to accepted even in a city as open as Shanghai.

Yongfuyuan, another cemetery in the city, says only 22 people have subscribed to its land-saving burial program since it was launched four years ago.

But as land resources become scarcer, perhaps people will need to think again.