No place in China: father's ashes in a PO box (5 photos)

Recently, a scandal broke out when a Chinese woman told about her friend who couldn't afford a place to bury his father's ashes or a mausoleum. So he had no choice but to rent... a post office box to store the urn there!





What could be stored in the neighboring box? Unexpected things

Urn with ashes until claimed

The man said that his house was too small and the funeral services were very expensive. He was simply at a dead end and in despair when his father died, and his son couldn't even take care of the ashes.

And then he was given brilliant advice: rent a place in a Hive Box post machine with cells.

It costs ridiculously little - only 55 yuan per year. Still, delivery and mailing in China are very cheap, but funeral services are insanely expensive.



Beautiful lacquered boxes are sold for ashes

For example, buying a grave less than one square meter in area will cost at least 100,000 yuan in the suburbs of large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

A grave is the most respectful way of burial, therefore it is considered the preferred choice for the Chinese. They believe that souls will find peace only when their bodies or ashes are buried in the ground.

However, leaving ashes in a funeral home (in cells in mausoleums, you have probably seen such) has now become the most popular option. Since it is relatively inexpensive, it costs several hundred yuan per year.





This columbarium can also raise prices because of the queue

The most fashionable funerals

The crisis of lack of space for cemeteries is currently in full swing in China. The authorities are fighting harshly against illegal burials, threatening that all illegal graves found will be destroyed, which means that the ancestors will not get peace.

The Chinese authorities are trying to popularize all sorts of fashionable ways of burying without a grave. For example, they make beautiful tours along the sea to scatter ashes over it. Or make ashes fertilizer for a future tree in front of your house.



In China, graves are placed VERY close to each other, there is still not enough space

But mainland China is somehow not impressed by such options, the power of tradition is still strong. Therefore, alternative methods have attracted a small percentage of young people.

The post office was offended

The Hive Box company, which sold space in a post office box, said that these were rumors! They don't keep any urns with ashes. And even more so, it is forbidden to put bones, ashes and remains in boxes. And in general, they raised prices to 240 yuan per year.



I wrote about the trend of scattering over the sea. It didn't catch on.

The Chinese woman who told about the precedent was afraid of sanctions for popularizing the blasphemous method of burial, and deleted her account. But everyone managed to harass and sue her, because it is immoral and cruel to the feelings of the deceased. And the feelings of people who would rent neighboring cells (although who would know!?).

The father is unhappy that he has such a son, they said. In short, they put on white coats and did not offer to chip in for the most mediocre normal burial for a man who decided on such measures clearly out of desperation.