Making the poor live near the dead.

last updated 8 January 2015

China

Stephen Vines

The Hong Kong government has decided to store the ashes of thousands of people in the poorest part of town, said Stephen Vines in the Hong Kong Standard. It announced a plan to build a huge columbarium—a mausoleum for ashes—in the slums of Tuen Mun, where residents have no political clout. Few people in any culture want to live near a graveyard, but in a society in which deceased ancestors are believed to have the power to affect the living, the “Not in My Back Yard” reaction is even stronger. Obviously, bones and ashes must be stored somewhere, and existing columbaria are getting full. But a fair solution would be to build several small facilities in sparsely populated areas of Hong Kong. In fact, there are many areas with much better feng shui for cemetery purposes—but they happen to be in wealthy neighborhoods. Hong Kong bureaucrats “have many friends in the high-rent districts” and are evidently “loath to disturb them.” Sure it would be more trouble to build several sites. But “why must the government always seek a solution that disadvantages the less well-off?”