Watery graves: Amid land crunch, China is now promoting sea burials

Ancestor worship and associated rites have long held sway in China, but Beijing has reportedly begun discouraging traditional burials in view of a land crunch in the densely populated country.

In Chinese culture, arranging a traditional land burial with a tombstone for those departed has long been a marker of filial piety, as has been the maitenance and upkeep of these funeral plots.

However, rapid urbanisation in recent decades and an ageing population are making funeral plots increasingly scarce and expensive, thereby necessitating a change in the way last rites are carried out in the country.

According to a report by The Guardian, funeral plots in Chinese cities can now cost up to $14,550 (more than 100,000 yuan), and densely populated urban centres like Shanghai are projected to run out of cemetary space within the next 15 years.

Compounding this problem is the fact that despite an increase in cremations in recent years—from 47 per cent in 2015 to 59 per cent in 2021—many in China still opt for formal graves within which ash-bearing urns are stored.

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Given this situation, local authorities. as well as the Chinese government, have begun promoting alternative last rites in the East Asian nation.

Not only have local authorities begun offering cash benefits to those opting to scatter their relatives' ashes at sea or those opting for a low-profile burial, state media has also started running campaigns in a bid to bring about a cultural shift.

These efforts, in turn, have sprouted new forms of funeral services, wherein businesses have started taking people by the boatloads out to sea to allow them to scatter the remains of their relatives instead of opting for costly land burials.

In the city of Suzhou on China's east coast, for instance, the civil affairs bureau recently chartered a ship to take 190 bereaved people out to sea for a mass funeral service. Each of these families also received a 2,000 yuan subsidy for opting for a sea burial, The Guardian reported.

The publication further interviewed the owner of such a business, who, by her own admission, never imagined she would be making a living from the dead.

Xiao Hu, who founded her own company in 2022 to cater to the rising interest in sea burials, told The Guardian that she typically goes out to sea two or three times a week for mass funeral services. However, her clientele has steadily grown over the past year, and in busy periods, she often runs up to 30 such services a month.

These sea burials, however, aren't exactly cheap, and private sea burials may cost as much as 10,000 yuan or even higher, if multiple family members want to attend.

That being said, even the most expensive of these services are far cheaper than the cost of traditional land burials, and many such businesses even offer additional services, such as decomposable urns, to allow for eco-friendly and affordable last rites.

Whether these efforts and initiatives culminate in a broader cultural shift in Chinese society remains to be seen, but the markings of a necessity-driven change in traditions are indeed becoming visible.