Feng-suaded by seducing spirits

The other day I read an article in the New York Times about a new scam that's moved from China to Chinatown in the Big Apple where younger Asians pick on elderly Chinese who sleep on their savings kept in cash under the mattress. Basically, they tell the senior about dire things predicted by a "spiritual doctor" to happen to their loved ones and ask for a bag of cash for a "blessing."

 

"Chinese blessing scams have popped up all around the world in recent months, from San Francisco and Seattle to England and Australia," said the article.      

“They’re clearly preying on the immigrant community who has stronger religious beliefs and customs,” George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney, said in November.

      

Sometimes, one of the first women to approach the potential victim carries a hidden cellphone and a co-conspirator listens in, surprising the victim later by knowing personal information. On Monday, one of the suspects briefly claimed to be channeling the elderly woman’s dead husband.

The scams usually end the same way, with the victim handing over a bag of money to be blessed and the women switching it with an identical bag, filled with newspaper and water bottles.

 

 

Here is a must-read article from the New York Times:

BEIJING-On Wednesday night, the eve of the annual “tomb sweeping” festival known as Qingming, Ms. Zhao, 51, set alight wads of fake Chinese renminbi and American dollars in a street just off a major thoroughfare here in the capital. She also burned ceremonial checks, which her brother could deposit in heaven’s bank. In case he got bored with the immortal realm, she had thrown in a passport for easy interdimensional travel.

“This saves me a lot of trouble,” she said, poking at the flames with a stick. “They probably have the same system as we have on Earth, so now he can buy whatever he wants.”

Qingming, which was observed on Thursday, is an age-old festival in which the living pay respect to their dearly departed ancestors — and in-laws — by tidying graves and burning paper offerings so that the spirits can afford the good afterlife.

Banned by the victorious Communist Party in 1949 for its feudal links, Qingming has had a resurgence in recent years. Since the festival was officially reinstated by the mainland government as a public holiday in 2008, the masses have flocked to their relatives’ graves to sweep away debris and leave behind the deceased’s temporal favorites, like oranges, cigarettes and beer.

Regardless of whether the living believe the dead actually enjoy such tokens, Qingming has become a prime opportunity to celebrate filial piety, the Confucian value that is deeply embedded in the DNA of Chinese society. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, more than 520 million people visited cemeteries during the festival last year, up from 420 million in 2011.

In the days leading up to Qingming this year, Beijingers appeared at cemeteries carrying brooms and gifts like flowers and snacks. Last Saturday alone, 133,000 people visited the city’s 20 public cemeteries, some of which drew nearly double the attendance from a year earlier, according to the Beijing municipal government.

For the living, Qingming stirs up an anxiety that goes beyond the question of what happens after death. According to a government report issued this week, China is expected to run out of burial space in the coming decade. The shortage comes at a time when there are already more than 181 million people older than 60, leading many to worry just where their remains will be interred.

The crisis has spurred a growing black market, particularly in large cities. In 2010, for example, about 31 percent of ashes were buried in legal Beijing cemeteries; in the southeastern city of Guangzhou, the number was 6 percent, according to a funeral industry report. Illegal cemeteries are cheaper.

High demand and limited space have made the cost of a final resting place soar. At the well-tended Tianshouyuan Cemetery in Beijing, an idyllic spot on the outskirts of the city that is famous for its feng shui, grave plots for ashes sell for as much as $46,000 per square meter.

While the Babaoshan People’s Cemetery to the south is completely full, those looking for an alternative can store their relatives’ cremated remains at the nearby Laoshan Ashes Hall in a small locker for as much as $140 annually for three years.

The market forces pervading those hallowed grounds are tolerated but not welcomed. “Burial plots are absurdly expensive nowadays,” said a retired public servant leaving the hall last Sunday. “We can afford to spend tens of thousands on a plot, but why? Looking after your elders while they’re alive is what’s important.”

Wanan Cemetery, an hour’s drive from central Beijing, is a tranquil testament to China’s contemporary prosperity. Gleaming marble tombs adorned with floral bouquets, bottles of rice wine and pastries stretch out in rows under pine trees. All is quiet except for the occasional bird song. But amid the expensive displays of filial devotion lie remnants of a past the Communist Party has tried to hide: broken tombstones that were destroyed by Mao’s Red Guards in the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, are covered in lichen.

Qingming is a rare occasion when the ghosts of that terrible era cannot be ignored. As he repaired the cracks on his mother’s grave, a 75-year-old retired professor who would give only his surname, Yue, because the Cultural Revolution remains politically delicate, grimaced at the memory. “I could see those rogues breaking gravestones, but I couldn’t stop them,” he said.

Some Chinese travel huge distances to pay their respects. Li Lihua, 54, a civil servant, spent 20 hours riding a train from Beijing to the southern coastal province of Fujian because he would never forgo sweeping his ancestors’ graves. “That’s how you judge the worth of a clan,” he said.

For those unable to make the journey home, technology provides a substitute. Dozens of tomb Web sites have sprung up, allowing Internet users to buy virtual flowers and make an avatar bow before a digital grave with the click of a mouse.

Some entrepreneurs have gone all out to ensure that the dead have access to earthly pleasures. An e-commerce site, Taobao, lists numerous paper offerings to be burned for the gadget-loving spirit, like cardboard MacBook Pro laptops, iPhones and iPads.

In Beijing shops on Wednesday, customers could buy sheets of paper emblazoned with jade bracelets, blankets, luxury sedans and a “heavenly villa.” According to the Chinese news media, certain devoted relatives burn paper mistresses to accompany their departed in the afterlife.

Not everyone approves of burning such upscale items. Zhang Xianglong, a philosophy professor at Shandong University, said acts of incendiary consumerism corrupt the true meaning of Qingming. “Burning mansions and cars is too over the top,” he said. “Creating wealth and class divides for those in the next world goes completely against Confucianism’s value of filial piety.”

Still, on the eve of Qingming, Beijing residents took to the streets with paper offerings and matches, despite a ban aimed at preventing the festival’s participants from adding to the city’s already polluted air.

Li Fengliang, 51, who owns a funerary shop, was doing a brisk business in paper currencies and cardboard villas featuring chandeliers and flat-screen televisions. “Everything the living send the spirits receive in the afterlife; otherwise, why do it?” he said. As for his ancestors’ graves, those would have to wait. “I’d love to sweep their tombs,” he said. “But this is my biggest day of the year.”