Making a killing out of the dead

AS ONE of the so-called six evils, superstition is officially on the Chinese Communist Party's hit list of social ills. But you wouldn't know it in this southern coastal town.

Here, the authorities are not only turning a blind eye to the worship of gods, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena, they are also getting in on the act, making a killing by catering to an age-old belief in fung shui, or geomancy.

According to a tradition which dates back about 2,000 years, one's fortune is often determined by the fung shui of one's home, workshop or office. Good fung shui - literally wind and water - locks in positive forces and keeps evil elements out.

In the afterlife, the all-important thing is to have one's remains buried in a fung shui -friendly place. Otherwise, the consequences could be dire, with the spirits of the dead forced to roam the nether world and sometimes returning in anger to haunt the living.

It was this sort of mysticism which the Chinese Government vowed to wipe out when it declared superstition one of the targets of its anti-evils campaign four years ago. The other evils are prostitution, pornography, buying and selling of women and children, gambling and narcotics.

But just as the campaign was getting into swing, communist officials in Xiamen realised they were sitting on a gold mine: a hill about a 30-minute drive from the city centre which geomancers from Taiwan and Hongkong declared to have ideal fung shui conditions.

Unable to resist the temptation to turn a quick profit, the Burial Management Bureau of Xiamen started a joint venture with a Hongkong company to turn the hill into a cemetery for well-heeled overseas Chinese.

Strictly speaking, the government should not be encouraging such practices. But this, like many other taboos, is crumbling now that financial gain, rather than ideological purity, has become the ultimate measure of the success of China. OFFICIALS and other residents acknowledge superstition is back in force and little is being done to stop it. Some extended families have erected shrines where they worship their ancestors. Locals search out spirit mediums so they can chat with the dead.

Taiwanese arrive in groups carrying statues of their patron saint, Mazu, whom they like to worship in her native province. And, like elsewhere in China, some people even worship the image of Mao Zedong.

''Yes, there is a contradiction between this [the revival of traditional burial practices] and the relevant regulations,'' said Mr Hong Tianfu, deputy director of the burial bureau as he showed off the Chinese Eternal Cemetery.

''The government just tries to limit it and keep it all low key. All we care about is whether we make money,'' said Mr Hong, whose bureau is an arm of the municipal government.

The government looks the other way. ''Now, with economic reform and opening up to the outside world, the government is more relaxed about these sorts of things,'' Mr Hong said.

To make sure the geomantic conditions were right, the burial bureau sought out a few geomancers in Xiamen to check out the property before developing the cemetery.

In geomantic terms, the cemetery is ideal, with a hill at the back and ridges along the sides to protect against winds, and a view of the sea to the south. ''It's like a hunched tiger,'' Mr Hong said.

The cost of a typical 7.5 square metre plot is HK$22,000, while a modest granite tombstone is about $30,000. There is also an internment fee of $800 for corpses and $400 for ashes. Government policy demands all mainlanders be cremated, but overseas Chinese and their relatives may opt to have their corpses interred.

The only limits to extravagance are imagination and money. For $400,000, some Hongkong residents secured a resting place the size of a living room for their father, who lived and died in Xiamen. The grave is decorated with stone statues of lions (to scare away evil spirits), lamps and elephants.

Mr Hong said the cemetery had already sold 1,000 of its 6,000 plots.

The joint venture's investment of $9 million in the cemetery is only a small fraction of the expected revenues.

''It's like real estate,'' Mr Hong said. ''It's easy to make money.''