ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
December 21, 2015
In crowded Hong Kong, dead find no space to rest in peace
By Kelvin Chan
AP Business Writer
ONG KONG — In tightly packed
Hong Kong, the dead are causing
a problem for the living.
After Chui Yuen-sing’s mother died in
April, she was cremated and her ashes put
in storage while he tried to find a final
resting place. He was willing to wait up to
18 months for a pigeonhole-like “niche” in
a memorial building. If none was availa-
ble, he was considering putting them in
mainland China, where his father’s ashes
are already stored, or taking an even more
drastic step that conflicted with Chinese
tradition.
“Maybe I would have scattered my
mom’s ashes in a public park,” the retired
university lecturer said. “But if I used this
method, then in my heart, I probably
wouldn’t feel very good … Chinese people
think that you should be buried in the
ground to find peace.”
Chui’s choices highlight the long-
running struggle to find enough space to
accommodate both the living and the dead
in the cramped southern Chinese city of
7.2 million. Limited land to build on and
soaring property prices are colliding with a
tradition of visiting grave sites on “tomb
sweeping” holidays to burn incense and
pay respects to venerated dead ancestors.
Hong Kong’s aging society means the
problem will get worse. The number of
senior citizens is expected to rise from 15
percent of the population in 2014 to nearly
a quarter by 2024. The number of deaths
each year will rise from 42,700 in 2010 to
50,300 by the end of the decade, according
to government forecasts.
In the 1960s, administrators of Hong
Kong, which was then a British colony,
began encouraging cremation to ease the
strain of a fast-growing population on
space-starved cemeteries. Now, the crema-
tion rate has risen to about 90 percent.
To store the ashes, the government
builds large structures known as
columbaria that have tens of thousands of
niches for urns as well as furnaces to burn
paper money and other offerings. But
supply hasn’t kept up with demand.
H
“There’s undoubtedly not enough,” said
Lam Wai-lung, chairman of the Funeral
Business Association. Official attempts to
encourage local councils to build more face
fierce opposition, he said.
“When the government holds consulta-
tions, residents of every district oppose
building it in their neighborhood. Every
area says no,” Lam said.
Part of the reason is that columbaria
draw huge crowds of people during tomb
sweeping holidays, causing big traffic jams
and air pollution from the paper offerings
burned.
Families face a waiting list of up to six
years for a government-provided niche, so
some turn to private providers, including
more than 120 that have been deemed
illegal.
But private niches can be too expensive
for many families, with prices at one tem-
ple ranging from 73,000 Hong Kong dol-
lars ($9,500) to HK$890,000 ($115,000).
Since 2007, authorities have also
promoted “green” burials by scattering
ashes at sea or in 11 gardens of
remembrance. But such practices conflict
with Chinese traditions that hold that
burying remains in an auspicious spot on a
mountainside or near the sea are vital for a
Fans mourn death of reclusive star Setsuko Hara
TOKYO
(AP)
—
Precisely in keeping with
her zeal for privacy, news of
actress Setsuko Hara’s
death on September 5 was
kept quiet until recently.
The star of director
Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story
and many other Japanese
classics was 95 years old.
Japanese fans laid flow-
ers and other memorials
outside Hara’s former stu-
dio after relatives disclosed
news
of
her
death,
prompting an outpouring
of affection for the reclusive
actress dubbed the “eternal
virgin.”
Hara’s poise and beauty
endeared her to fans who
viewed her as a role model
for modern Japanese wom-
en in the years after the
country’s defeat in World
War II.
She starred in many
other Ozu films, such as
Early Summer and Late
Spring. Hara withdrew
from public life after she
retired at age 42, spending
the next 53 years in the
quiet seaside city of
Kamakura, near her birth-
place of Yokohama.
Her family told media
family’s fortunes.
The government has been trying to
change attitudes with educational videos
and seminars at retirement homes. It’s
even set up an electronic memorial website
where families can post photos and videos
of the deceased and send electronic
offerings of plums or roast pork. Interest
remains limited, with green burials rising
from a few dozen in 2005 to 3,553 last year.
Some companies are offering more
creative solutions.
Sage Funeral Services started offering a
service three years ago through a South
Korean laboratory that uses ultrahigh
heat to turn ashes into memorial gems.
“In the first year everybody said I’m
crazy,” said Betsy Ma, Sage’s sales
director, who had her father’s ashes made
into gems that she wears in her earrings
and necklace.
Many Chinese believe that carrying
human remains as jewelry or storing them
at home will attract ghosts, said Ma. Still,
in the past year the procedure has gained
popularity, she said.
Government auditors have said Hong
Kong faces an “acute shortage” of niches
over the next three years because of project
delays and a government plan to regulate
private operators.
The new law, expected to take force next
year, is aimed at better managing private
operators, which frequently violate
land-use rules or safety codes. Some
CROWDED COLUMBARIA. A woman prays
(left photo) while holding a package of paper money
intended to be burned as an offering to her dead fa-
ther with a wall of niches for cremated remains in the
background at a private columbarium in Hong Kong.
In tightly-packed Hong Kong, the dead are causing a
problem for the living. Pictured at right are crystallized
beads created from cremated ashes that can be used
to make memorial gems. The beads are made at a
South Korean laboratory that uses ultra-high heat to
turn ashes into the gems. (AP Photos/Kin Cheung)
entrepreneurs spot an opportunity to
modernize a market dominated by small,
old-fashioned operators.
“There will be a new generation of high-
class columbaria coming up,” said Francis
Neoton Cheung, an urban designer and
chairman of Life Culture Group, which
invests in columbarium projects.
One company he has worked with, Kerry
Logistics, is proposing converting a
15-story waterfront warehouse into a
modern columbarium.
The HK$2 billion ($260 million) project
will have 82,000 niches opened by
smartcards and videoscreens showing
photos and movies of the deceased as well
as high-tech air filtration to cut pollution
from burning joss sticks and paper
offerings. However, the company has yet to
secure planning approval after local
residents objected.
Chui, the retired lecturer, compared
waiting times for public urn spaces to
demand for public housing.
“There’s never enough supply. For some
people it causes great hardship,” he said.
Chui was one of about 9,480 people who
applied for 3,256 new niches offered in
October from the Board of Management of
Chinese Permanent Cemeteries, a private
group.
He got lucky, winning a family niche. He
plans to bring his father’s ashes back from
mainland China so his parents can be
together.
Shan Shan Kao contributed to this report.
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PRIVATE PASSING. In this photo taken in 1960, Japanese actress
Setsuko Hara poses in Tokyo. In a last act precisely in keeping with her
zeal for privacy, actress Hara, the star of director Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo
Story and many other Japanese classics, died September 5, 2015, but
kept the news quiet until recently. (Kyodo News via AP)
that Hara had not wanted a
fuss, so they kept quiet for
more than two months
after her death.
Shunning public ap-
pearances and interviews,
she chose to regain her
private life after her last
film in the early 1960s.
Hara’s early retirement
meant her public image
remained forever youth-
ful.
Though she made dozens
of films before beginning to
work with Ozu, one of
Japan’s
most
revered
directors, Hara is best
remembered for Ozu’s
movies. She also appeared
in Akira Kurosawa’s inter-
pretation of Dostoevsky’s
The Idiot and in his No
Regrets for Our Youth.
Hara was born Masae
Aida on June 17, 1920.
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