Shanghai (CNS) -- The ashes of five deceased Shanghai residents sealed in biodegradable cinerary urns were buried in the municipal public cemetery of Pu'ai Yuan on Wednesday. No gravestones mark the plots, so that the cemetery can accept the remains of many more people - far beyond its normal volume limits, year after year.
Pu'ai Yuan, unveiled on the same day, is Shanghai's first ecological cemetery dedicated to the public good, and it charges far less than traditionally-run burial grounds. Instead of gravestones, the cemetery has set up an alternative means of commemoration - a monument which will be inscribed with the names of the dead. The cemetery also plans to arrange two annual mass funerals, on Tomb-sweeping Day and the winter solstice, two traditional occasions for burials on the Chinese lunar calendar.
Tension about the mean dimensions of living spaces in the metropolis has extended to the narrowness of cemetery accommodations in the afterlife. In the future, sea burials will also be designed more affordable and environmentally friendly; and special interment services will be planned for those living under the municipal poverty line, as parts of the municipal efforts to encourage its residents to accept the notion of ecological burial rites, according to the official in charge of the city's interment and funeral services.
