Hong Kong Cemetery (2006-01-27)
We spent a morning going to a place with KL's sister where their father's burial vault is to pay our respect. The rows upon rows of solid sealed stone vaults are located next to a cemetery on Hong Kong island.
According to KL's sister, there is this ridiculously weird practice
in Hong Kong where upon someone's
death, the family can either pay about US$40,000 for a burial hole in
the ground or US$9000 to RENT
one for seven years. When the seven years is up, the family will
have to exhume the body and find somewhere else to keep the
bones. If that is not the ultimate disturbance to the deceased, I
don't know what is? Do they not know what "Rest In Peace"
means? For those who can't afford the 40K hole, isn't cremation
the only other option instead of having had to dig up their loved one
later on down the track?
Like many people, KL's family opted to rent a tiny grave (about 5 ft
by 3 feet) when his father died 15 years ago. So after seven
years, his father's bones were, too, dug up from the ground and
transferred to a stone vault built into a wall. The transference
process and vault incurred another lot of money of course.
The vaults are situated on the third level of a structure which
houses nothing but walls of vaults. There is usually an old black
and white photo of the deceased on the covering of the vault under
which a simple epitaph is inscribed, and
the majority of the pictured gave an austere facial expression.
It is almost as if the deceased knew that at the time the
pictures were
taken, they were for their own headstones or vaults, so there is
really no reason to act happy.
Many vaults have flowers, usually artificial, placed in a small ring
built onto the surface of the vault. It is easy to feel the
creeps when hundreds of straight-faced sepia eyes of the dead look back
at you when
standing in front of the vaults. When that happens, it's best to
just turn around and enjoy the view of the sea and hillside surrounding
the vaults, the same view and tranquility the deceased can enjoy.
Permenantly this time.
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