Congratulations, you're dead

In accordance with its 法家 (legalist) roots, Beijing has announced that it is to introduce a raft of tough new legislation to better regulate the conduct of Chinese citizens who are engaging in ancestor worship and remembrance during the yearly festival of 清明 (Qing Ming).

Under the new legislation, unveiled in a preliminary form by vice minister of civil affairs Dou Yupei; who was speaking at a national symposium on funeral services in Chengdu earlier this week, the new legislation will expressly forbid the offering of symbolic grave gifts - representations of actual gifts made from cut or folded paper - that are considered to be vulgar, showy or otherwise inappropriate.

According to Dou, a complete government mandated ban on such offerings is necessary for two primary reasons:

1) To preserve social order
2) To curb outmoded superstitions

[Decedents] feelings are understandable, [but] burning these messy things -- not only is it mired in feudal superstition, but it just appears low and vulgar." Dou Yupei, Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs, China

At present no specifications of forbidden grave gifts have been released,  though gifts representing contraceptives, concubines, and luxury homes have been suggested as being at the top of the list.

The exact penalties for burning 'vulgar' grave gifts also remain under wraps, but nominal fines and associated public shaming are likely to be used, rather than custodial sentencing or the removal of right. The use of the death penalty is also thought unlikely.

It remains unclear as to whether whether punishment will be limited to relatives who are found to have made 'vulgar' offerings, or if they will extend to storekeepers who sell pre prepared grave gifts that fall within forbidden categories.

Insidious Motives?

Although Beijing has long acted to discourage any activity that it fears might encourage people to believe in something beyond the power of the state, Beijing's latest pronouncement has lead some observers to believe that the government might be about to mount a renewed campaign against 'superstition' that is specifically aimed at eroding or modifying traditional Chinese ancestral beliefs.

As such, observers have noted that Dou's pronouncement against 'vulgar offerings' comes at a time when China's heavily controlled press has increasingly been allowed to publish tabloid style stories about individuals whose families believe that they have been making 'excessive grave offerings', and soon after Beijing began tacitly encouraging people to make 'virtual offerings' using online services.

Observers have claimed that far from serving the greater public need for news, media articles on 'excessive offerings' have been primarily produced to promote the the idea that the offering of grave goods constitutes 'eccentric behavior' which is carried out by the old to bring comfort to the living – but which has no relevance to the young, and is of no use to the dead.

Similarly, observers have voiced that use of online services - so called 'Virtual Memorial Halls' - both of trivializes grave offerings, by removing the spiritual significance of making a physical offering, and of engenders a feeling of isolation and embarrassment among those carrying out more traditional rituals by encouraging the ideal that they are 'behind the times'.

In addition to this, it has also been noted that, by encouraging people to make smaller and smaller offerings, or to make them online, Beijing has been acting to make ancestral beliefs far less conspicuous. Thus discouraging people from carrying out traditional rituals by propagating the false nation that 'nobody else is doing it'.

Historically, Beijing has been known to have deployed similar tactics against a number of different groups and traditions with which it has issues. Including Ethnic Tibetans; whose culture Beijing promotes as being 'suitable for museums and tourist villages, but not modern life' and divination; whose practitioners have largely been banned from advertising or providing services using any form of modern technology.

Despite these criticism though, online virtual memorial halls have proven popular with people who are unable to travel to their families graves, or whom are too poor to afford to construct a tomb that they believes fitting for their ancestors

“Chinese people pay special attention to their families and forefathers. But only great people have memorial halls. Every single life is unique and should exist for ever. Our slogan is: 'Bury your body in earth, but keep your spirit on the Net'”. Lin Xiaodong, Director, Netor (online virtual Memorial Hall) http://cn.netor.com/memorial.asp

Solidarity?

While restrictions imposed on the Chinese media make it difficult for Mainland Chinese to adequately voice their opinions on the issue of government interference with traditional practices, they have not prevented expressions of solidarity being made from outside of China.

As unlikely as it sounds, one such source of sympathy has been from western Christians, many of whom who increasingly feel that their own governments are using laws that were intended to prevent state promotion of one religion over another or the convergence of state and church authority, as tools to restrict religious expression in a similar manner to the Chinese government.

Such complaints include that western governments have been attempting to remove the religious significance from traditional festival by to encouraging their replacement with consumer orientated 'secular alternatives', and that they have been attempting to prevent public displays of religious in an effort to corral religious groups into isolated communities that are separated from wider society by moral and social issues.

Preserving Social Order?

Under current government thinking, the following of any system or ideology that does not originate from the Chinese state, or the belief in any power/purpose that is higher than the Chinese state, is considered to be a threat to the authority of the state.

For this reason, Beijing often acts to restrict the activities of religious or spiritual groups that it deems to hold too much power. It also forbids the formation of political parties, labor unions, protest groups, and solidarity movements unless they are under direct party control, and moves to either deny the existence of any public cause, or to bring it under direct government control.

清明節?

清明節 can be translated literally as meaning the clear bright festival, or interpreted as the festival of cleaning the next world. In English, it is often translated to the “Tomb Sweeping Festival”.

清明節 is a traditional Chinese festival of ancestral worship and remembrance during which time families tend to the tombs of their ancestors and offer grave goods, usually in the form of paper money that is burnt in honor of a deceased relative in the belief that the essential essences of the offering will travel to them in the next existence.

In addition to paper money, any earthly item may be offered in the form of a paper representation that it burnt in the same fashion. Traditionally these offerings would have been practical items, such as food and furniture. More recently, they have included anything from paper wide screen televisions to prostitutes.

The leaving of real goods or carved grave goods is not common.

Although celebrated using the Lunar calender, 清明節 is usually represented on the western calender as being around 5 April.

Gift Ideas

In response to Dou's announcement, some foreign commentators have suggested that the living should offer copies of Mao's 'Little Red Book' and other communist artifacts to the dead, so as to ensure that their ancestors can maintain 'a correct socialist attitude' in the next world.

In this case, observers have recommended that traditional paper effigies be discarded. Instead, advising families to burn the real thing.

tags: chinese religious  qing ming  legalism  beijing  ancestor worship  civil liberties  tradition  china  culture  legalist  human right  grave goods  offerings  

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