An article entitled ‘Even death, no escape from rising prices’, appeared on April 11, 2014 in The Malay Mail .
In life, the rich, poor, powerful and powerless, everyone has to go through the process of birth, aging, sickness and death, no one can escape it.
The article highlighted that the cost of burial plots has gone up significantly in the country particularly in the Klang Valley areas due to acute scarcity of burial grounds. This has affected the non-Muslims in that they have to resort to bury and rebury sometimes as many as three dead in a single grave at the public cemeteries.
Reburial is a practice involving interring one body over another several years later or even cremating the remains of the second, third and subsequent generations in a family and placing the urns containing the ash in the same burial plot.
It is easy to fathom that due to the ever increasing population, the land prices escalate many times over times, sometimes in hundreds of thousands of ringgit. Some countries have exhumed graves at cemeteries to give way for building houses and high-rise apartments for the rising population. Logically since man is looking to the sky for space for strata living, the dead must also have strata-types of burials so as to bury more in less space.
It is a natural course of events. Since the prices of burial plot, the caskets, the funeral services, the crematorium fees, many related items, etc have increased many-fold, many people have found it difficult to bear and often times it is beyond their financial ability.
In Malaysia, the spending of Chinese family funerals have been viewed as a measurement of their filial piety, but his is more about showing wealth and social status. However, due to the ever-rising cost of the funerals, the writer feels that it is a sheer non-necessity. The writer also feels that even keeping the ash in urns which are kept permanently is burdensome and not necessary any more.
In China there is now a trend to restrain their spending on funerals. In some suburban cemeteries, they practice tree funerals. The remains are cremated and the ashes are put inside biodegradable urns. The urns are then buried at the foot of a cypress tree. This is a “non-traditional” tree funeral. The urns degrade in about three to six months depending on the weather.
Tree funerals an extension of their life
Feedback from the majority of people of the surrounding counties shows that they like this idea very much. They say it is frugal and green in funerals. Some even say that their ancestors’ ashes nourish the tree, implying that the tree is an extension of their life.
What a novel idea indeed!
Drawing the idea mentioned above, the writer has mooted an idea for the Malaysian context in that a single grave can be used to bury a family for many generations. The biodegradable urns will not exhaust the plot of a grave. It can therefore be used perpetually.
This will entail that the people do not have to buy new plots of burial land in either public or private cemeteries. This brings myriad benefits to the community and the country as a whole. It is a very good way to show condolences and save money at the same time. This way, the people can still maintain the annual doomsweepings and pray to their ancestors.
For the very rich, they may not like this idea as it makes them feel like losing face. However, the rich is a minority and they can continue to do expensive funerals. Over a longer period of time even the rich may follow suit.
As for other communities, the writer cannot comment whether they will fancy this idea or not. The Indian community may like this idea, but this cannot be said for the Muslims.
Those in doubt can go to suburban Taiyuan in Shanxi province in China to see for themselves.
There are many biodegradable materials which can be processed for making the biodegradable urns. The only thing that is required is a change in mindset. This may be quite easy as multiple burials in a single plot have been in practice. This trend will take off as it is a cost-saving driven practice. Why not?