Harbin Daily reporter Li Yue
The Qingming Festival is approaching, and the funeral venues in Harbin have also ushered in a small peak of sacrifice and sweeping recently. During the visit, the reporter found that this year, the Harbin Funeral Service Center continued to advocate flowers, yellow ribbons, Jisi cards and other civilized sacrifice methods, and also designed and launched new green sacrifice methods such as heart seals and water-soluble sacrifices, giving the sacrifice people a variety of choices and making the concept of green, safe and civilized sacrifice more popular.
On the eve of this year's Qingming Festival, the Harbin Funeral Service Center innovated the civilized sacrifice method, and carefully designed and launched 4 series of 76 funeral and sacrificial cultural seals (referred to as the heart seal) of character, morality, zodiac, and new 24 filial piety, for the public to stamp on the card or paper during the Qingming Festival. "During the Qingming Festival, we found that many citizens wanted to express their grief in a more concise and precise way, and the seal that could leave a commemorative memory without writing was just right. Wang Mei, Secretary of the Party Committee of Harbin Funeral Service Center, said that the seal is also one of the representatives of traditional culture, and the Qingming Festival is also a traditional festival to promote filial piety and remember relatives.
"The content of each set of seals is repeatedly designed and polished, such as character, moral series, a collection of familiar adjectives such as bright, hard work, thrift and other familiar adjectives, the new twenty-four filial piety series is added to the character scene, so that the interpretation is more vivid and vivid. Wang Mei told reporters that the seal can not only be used during the festival, but they also plan to carry out activities into the campus and community, so that more children and young people can understand the connotation of the Qingming Festival while stamping the seal.
This year, the Harbin Funeral Service Center also launched a new environmentally friendly sacrifice method of "water-soluble sacrifice" in Huangshan Cemetery. It is understood that since 2009, Harbin has held 37 sea burial activities in Dalian, and a total of 2,527 ashes of the deceased have been integrated into the sea. In 2022, the Sea Burial Memorial was inaugurated at Huangshan Cemetery, providing a dedicated place for the families of those buried at sea to remember and remember. "This year, we have introduced a water-soluble sacrifice method that is highly consistent with the environmental protection concept of sea burial in Huangshan Cemetery, providing a new carrier of memorial with a more full sense of ceremony for the families of the deceased buried at sea, so that the families of the deceased who have gone to Dalian to participate in the sea burial activities can complete the memorial without traveling far this Qingming Festival. Yang Hongwei, director of the Harbin Funeral Service Center, said that the letterheads, paper cranes, and paper boats used for water-soluble sacrifices are made of wood pulp synthesized from plants, and they are dissolved in water. As these sacrificial objects dissolve in water, the thoughts seem to "travel" through time and space, to the rushing sea, allowing the family to have a "dialogue" with the deceased.
Spacious and tidy rooms, well-designed flower stands, and all kinds of supplies...... In order to meet the diverse needs of the public, this year, the Tianheyuan Funeral Home in Harbin City has also opened 22 indoor mourning rooms including 6 themes such as Chinese style and scenery, and a more humanized sacrifice and sweeping environment allows citizens to sacrifice without being limited by the weather, and independent rooms give more privacy to the sacrifice, and citizens can also choose to carry out family memorial services here, so that the Qingming Festival can return to the true colors of Qingming. The indoor mourning room has been officially opened since the beginning of March this year, and has been recognized and chosen by many citizens, with an average daily reception capacity of 15 to 20 times.
It is understood that while innovating, the Harbin Funeral Service Center still advocates the Internet, flowers, music, Jisi cards, yellow ribbons and other civilized ways of worship. During the interview, the reporter found that with the gradual popularization of the concept of civilized sacrifice and sweeping, it is very common to hold a bouquet of flowers, write a parasitic card, tie a yellow ribbon, and order a song in various funeral places in Harbin City. According to preliminary statistics, up to now, the number of citizens who have adopted civilized sacrifices has increased by more than 30% compared with previous years.
"Remembering the ancestors, it is more important than the heart and not the form. Yang Hongwei said that the significance of the Qingming Festival is not only in remembrance but also in the inheritance, Harbin Funeral Service Center will continue to innovate, the emotion of chasing the end of the week into the expression of modern civilization, giving a new connotation to the civilization of the festival, so that the traditional festival is more cultural and civilized.