Cemetery in China forced to bury controversial mortgages-for-graves plan after media backlash
- Cemetery announced the plan and within days was forced to cancel the scheme after overwhelming negative publicity
- Many were angered by what they saw as greed and profiteering on people’s grief
The Kunming Jinlong Ruyi Park in the southwestern province of Yunnan revealed on Tuesday a plan to partner with a local bank to offer 10-year mortgages for graves that would covers costs up to 200,000 yuan (US$30,000).
The news quickly generated an avalanche of criticism. Several state media outlets published op-eds that decried the practice as “propping up funeral costs” and “indebting offspring”.
Many people ridiculed the bank on the Chinese internet, asking what it would do if a client defaulted on a burial plot.
“Please don’t tell me they are going to dig other families’ graves and then sell them at an auction,” said a commentator on Weibo.
Two days later both the cemetery and the bank, Yunnan Xishan BoB Rural Bank, a subsidiary of the Bank of Beijing, walked back the offering, telling the media that they had cancelled the deal.