Why Are Fake Graves Being Built Just Outside Of Beijing?

On May 11, 2014 by Tim Newman

Just outside a small village called Tongzhou, China, about 1 hour drive east of Beijing, there are strange things afoot. Body-less graves and cemeteries are springing up in rural locations. What’s that all about?

China is exploding, as far as population and urbanization is concerned. Buildings are being vomited far and wide from city centres and the sprawl of concrete is nothing short of an onslaught. Beijing alone has 21.7 million heads, which is not far off the entire population of Australia.

In 2012, the urban population of China overtook the number of countryside folk for the first time in history. The government is hell-bent on domination and if it wants someone’s land, it takes their land… at a very reasonable price. Of course, when I say “reasonable,” I don’t mean reasonable for the person who is forced to sell it. Quite the reverse.

So, outside of Tongzhou, at the thin end of the expansion wedge, residents (on a clear day when the smog isn’t stifling) can see Beijing on its ever quickening march forth. They know their peaceful days are numbered.

According to one Tongzhou resident, the Chinese government will pay slightly more money for land that is being used as a cemetery than they will for farming land. So these cabbage fields, devoid of crops, are converted into showcase graveyards in an attempt to get a slightly better deal for being swallowed whole by modernity.

The locals refer to it as “shǎjīng” – “stupid-clever”. I hope it works.

As a rather strange twist to the story, China is actually running out of space in its graveyards. The US has around 50,000, China has just 3,000. They are predicted to be fully booked with corpses in by 2019.

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