The Ghosts Haunting China's Cities

[iainh]

There's a fascinating article in today's Guardian about ghosts, funerals and attitudes to death in China's cities, and how they vary from rural practices, and even impact urban planning and rent/property values.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...inas-cities-death-dying-funerals-superstition

 

[Frideswide]

this is gold! thank you!

 

[iainh]

this is gold! thank you!

It's absolutely fascinating! Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Frideswide]

It's absolutely fascinating! Glad you enjoyed it.

Post-processual archaeologist made very very happy consider this your Good Dead for the Day

 

[Steven]

I often struggle to realise things as quickly as others do, so that 'twist' in the article's first anecdote shocked me.

 

[Yithian]

That's a great article, especially the idea about ghosts as kin or strangers.

I found ghosts to perform similar cultural work in Korea: they're conservative morality plays and reflections of cultural anxieties, not reality-based phenomena.

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...t-believe-in-ghosts.13957/page-2#post-2037114

 

[IbisNibs]

How hard on those families that want to pay respect to deceased loved ones, but who can't now because of new laws in big cities.
And how paradoxical that in big cities, where so many people live in huge apartment towers with so many others, the residents don't want to be reminded that sooner or later we all die. It seems like it would be much harder to ignore! In one year, how many more people in one single huge apartment tower are likely to die than would die in one small village neighborhood?