The data of the seventh national census shows that as of 2020, the total number of people living in rural areas is 509787562, accounting for 36.11% of the national population.
In fact, many of these people are the elderly, because young people, even middle-aged people, will mostly leave the countryside and go to the city to work, because the city is easier to make money than the countryside. And those who stay in the countryside, one is that it is not easy to find a job when they go to the city, and the other is that when they are old, they think that the last time of their lives will be spent in their homeland.
For these rural elderly, the countryside is the place where he was born and raised, and in the future, he will also be buried in the countryside, and even where he is buried, many rural elderly people have a good idea, and when they have time, they will often go to see their own cemeteries in the future. Entering the earth for safety is the way that China has adopted for the treatment of deceased people since ancient times, so burial has almost continued with the civilization of our country.
To this day, there are still many rural people who feel that after passing away, they should be buried in their family's cemetery in the form of burial. In fact, the funeral reform has begun, and this way of burial has been slowly banned now, and the Civil Code, which will be implemented from 2021, mentions that unauthorized burial is prohibited, and the state encourages cremation.
For example, Haikou City has issued a notice saying that from January 1, 2022, the whole city of Haikou will be cremated, and the remains of those who have previously been buried must also be moved to the cemetery. In other words, people who have been buried in the past, even if they are not cremated, will be relocated in the future.
The main reason for the ban on villagers from burying is that many experts feel that it will pollute the environment, waste land resources, and even cause forest fires. Experts say that there is still a certain truth in looking at it, for example, if the burial is to dig a grave, it will occupy a large area of land, and some will occupy cultivated land, which will waste land resources.
And when people go to the grave, they often burn candles, burn paper money and set off firecrackers, which will cause forest fires if they are not careful, and in 2021, when people in Fengshun County were sweeping graves on the mountain, because lighting paper money accidentally caused forest fires, the fire area even reached 256.59 acres.
Therefore, experts have suggested that burial should be prohibited, and the new version of the Land Administration Law will be officially implemented from September 1, 2021, which mentions that it is forbidden to occupy cultivated land to build kilns, build graves or build houses on cultivated land without authorization, dig sand, quarry, mine, and take soil. Therefore, if the villagers arbitrarily occupy the cultivated land to build graves in the future, it will be illegal.
In addition, some localities have also proposed the "three along the six districts", that is, along the railway, along the main road of the highway, along the river along the two sides of the visible surface and along the town built (planning) area, water source protection area, scenic spots, cultural relics protection area, farmland protection area, nature reserve and other areas. Within these ranges, graves cannot be built, and once they are discovered, they will be relocated or buried deeply.
The prohibition of burial has made many rural elderly people feel very sad, because the traditional funeral customs are difficult to change for a while, and compared with cemeteries, burial is still very economical. The price of the cemetery is very expensive now, the price of a small tomb on one side is generally more than 100,000, some of the higher cost performance is about 50,000 yuan, and some of the higher prices are even more than 100,000 yuan.
Moreover, this money is not a one-time delivery, a lifetime validity, but only a twenty-year validity period, after expiration, if it is not renewed, it will be moved out. Before entering the cemetery, it is also cremated, and the cremation fee is also extremely high. If it is a burial, it may be a few thousand yuan can be done, and the funeral can also collect some relatives and friends with the gift money, after canceling each other out, the burial does not cost much money at all, therefore, such a price gap makes it difficult for many rural people to accept, and has a resistant attitude towards funeral reform.
In fact, some people also feel that cremation is not very good, such as Wu Fei, a professor at Peking University, who said that cremation is like treating people as garbage, which is very disrespectful to the deceased, and it is recommended to restore burial. For Professor Wu's remarks, some people support and some people oppose, and some opponents believe that burial is already a bad habit, it is time to sweep out the stage of history, cremation can reduce the waste of land.
In fact, is the burial really that destructive? The often criticized waste of land resources is difficult to establish, because the burial grave is difficult to exist for a long time, and a family, after several generations, will forget the graves of former relatives, and then completely return to dust.
Therefore, there is no waste of land resources, coupled with the fact that the countryside is sparsely populated, and the graves are dug in deserted places, especially in the barren mountains and wild mountains, it is difficult to say that the land will be wasted. Only causing forest fires does exist, but it is not a common phenomenon, even if it is a cemetery, it will still cause fires when sweeping the grave.
However, the villagers are reluctant, but also have to slowly accept the reform of funeral customs, in the future the village wants to bury it will be difficult, some media even suggested to change customs, you can worship the ancestors online during the Qingming Festival.
What is your view on burial and cremation? Do you support the remarks of the Peking University professors?