Offerings swept away
- Source: Global Times
- [09:06 March 29 2011]
- Comments
A woman pulls petals from flowers for a grave at the Taiziyu Cemetery Park Monday to make them unappealing to thieves. Photo: Li Yanhui/GT
By Li Yanhui
The filial efforts of visitors to a Fengtai district cemetery to offer tributes at the graves of their deceased relatives before Tomb-Sweeping Day, on April 5, have been thwarted by thieves.
Large banners reading "stealing tributes is seriously forbidden" were visible throughout Taiziyu Cemetery Park in Fengtai district Monday.
"I know there were cases of people stealing the tributes in previous years, but the park's management this year seems much better," visitor Wei Keqiang, 78, told the Global Times Monday at the cemetery.
"I'll take away the tributes after the ceremony, so I won't have to be upset to find out that the tributes to my mother were stolen as soon as I left," he said. He had brought apples, flowers and wine for the ceremony.
This reporter observed about six women swiftly dodging around tall gravestones at the cemetery Monday, carrying cloth bags full of items and holding flowers.
A man of about 40, meanwhile, walked along the rows of graves, picking out fruit, wine and flowers to fill his bags. He disappeared quickly when the reporter tried to talk with him.
"You'd better take down your grave tributes, such as fruits and flowers, so nobody will take them away," a cemetery cleaner told the Global Times.
Employees patrolling in the cemetery told the Beijing Youth Daily on Saturday that the thieves have mainly focused on fruits, snacks and paper money offerings, which they repackage and sell to visitors at the gates of the cemetery, where there were two long lines of vendors selling offerings Monday. The employees also reminded visitors not to buy goods from those vendors.
An officer with the cemetery's administrative office who refused to reveal his name initially denied there were thieves in the park. After hearing that the reporter witnessed people taking items from graves, he said, "If they do exist, there must not be too many," and added that the cemetery's management has greatly improved.
"I have not heard of other cemetery parks having this issue. I cannot understand why people would steal offerings to the dead," a spokesman surnamed Huang with the Funeral and Interment Management Division of the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau told the Global Times Monday. "We will dispatch some people to look into these cases," he said.
