As people around China are to visit their ancestors' tombs this Friday on the Qingming Festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day, many are complaining they can't afford to die in cities, China Daily reported on Wednesday.
Soaring funeral costs have shot to the heavens over the last few years and now the average Beijingers will have to spend three-months salary to see a close family member off to the other side.
The newspaper queried five of Beijing's major cemeteries Tuesday, which charged between 10,000 yuan (about 1,426.5 U.S. dollars) and 30,000 yuan per square meter for a standard tomb. This compared with an average of 20,000 yuan per square meter for an home in downtown Beijing.
A Beijing resident Liao Yi said he has recently paid about 70,000 yuan to have his diseased father buried. The money is more than Liao's annual earnings, which was above the average level for Beijingers.
Liao spent 10,000 yuan on the funeral home, while the rest to buy a 2 square meter cemetery and a simple grave dug.
The country's funeral industry reported revenue of 7.5 billion yuan in 2004, and profit topped 1.098 billion yuan, statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Source: Xinhua
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