It's expensive to die in Beijing....

luxurylaunches.com 4-Apr-08

You know how the rich compete with each other about showing off who’s richer? With the way things are looking in China, the rich will start competing with each other by comparing who has their loved one buried in a more expensive tomb plot. Is this a bit too bizarre to picture? But it just might be a reality when you take into consideration how tomb plot prices have been skyrocketing in Beijing making the poor unable to afford funerals and the rich to buy tomb plots more expensive than houses! According to reports in the China Daily, five of Beijing's major cemeteries now demand between 10,000 yuan ($1,425 USD) and 30,000 yuan ($4276 USD) per square metre for a standard tomb in comparison to an average of 20,000 ($ 2,851 USD) yuan per square metre for an apartment in downtown Beijing

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The paper’s editor, Liao Yi, paid about 70,000 yuan ($ 9,977 USD) to a funeral home to have his father buried in a two-square-metre plot at a cemetery in Beijing's southern Fangshan district. Even basic rates for cremation were proving beyond the means of many residents, the paper said, citing a 4,000 yuan ($ 570 USD) price-tag at a funeral home in the southern city of Shenzhen.

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