Luxury funerals death

Luxury funerals? Well, that is something which happens in China, another display of wealth, status and power. And the new President, Xi Jinping  has deiced to crack down on this show of extravagance.

Recently, in Oct there had been live coverage of a lavish funeral on Chinese TV. This was for the late wife of a village official. It had a two-mile procession that included professional mourners, a marching band, and a motorcade. It caused massive traffic jams and people were furious, asking how a public servant could have afforded this funeral.

China has the same issue as India – corruption and instead of trying to remove it, which seems impossible, the Chinese President has started cutting down on all shows of extravagance and excesses of the ruling elite. Keeping in tune with the same spirit, the Chinese Govt has released ‘norms’ for holding a funeral, prohibiting monumental gravestones, fireworks, and the practice of collecting gifts, which used to mainly bribes, at memorials. In fact the Govt urged officials to become posthumous organ donors. Ironically, the same day when this ban was levied, a high-end funeral service provider, known as ‘death care service provider’ had opened his IPO for subscription and it was a huge success as people felt that its business prospects were immense. So much so for austerity! China cannot weed out corruption but what it is doing is at least crack down on the appearance of corruption!