The burial culture based on the traditional Confusion ideology which emphases 'Ancestor Worship Ideology' and 'Filial piety' has encroached a large part of the domestic territory.
Actually, government has executed intense policy to restrict the priva...
The burial culture based on the traditional Confusion ideology which emphases 'Ancestor Worship Ideology' and 'Filial piety' has encroached a large part of the domestic territory.
Actually, government has executed intense policy to restrict the private tombs establishment to solve the problem by law. However the policy didn’t make much difference since the people’s cognition has not changed. And now the inroad of territory by private tombs is spotlighted again, government couldn’t help presenting ‘The Periodic Burial Regulation’ to the public. This regulation has existed since the early stage of 1990. However, what makes it different from the previous form is that now it is legislated. It limited the maximum tomb establishing term to 60years by ' The Law of Burial and Funeral'. By the law, people can extend establishing term only fifteen years each time and can extend the term only three times in total.
‘The Periodic Burial Regulation’ is considered a remarkable method to restraint to increase accumulated number of tombs. However, to apply this regulation to the reality successfully, building enough information and managing it systematically should be prerequisite.
However, the effectiveness is seriously in doubt to the associates. It is because that the government has accepted building private tombs and the declaration rate of its establishment shows very low records. Local authorities retain little information about private tombs and it doesn’t have even the record of tombs.
So, this paper is written analyzing concerning problems of ‘The Periodic Burial Regulation’ in terms of its contents, execution procedure and people’s deliberation of it.
Here are the institutional problems to be considered. First, the limitation of acquiring information about tombs is serious. To deal with this problem there should be some methods for linking declaration of burial and building private tombs with the death declaration. Moreover, in the long term the abolition of private tombs system is also considered as an ultimate alternative like foreign countries’ cases. Public cemetery system can substitute existing private tombs system. National cemetery system also needs some reformation to the direction to allow the public to use, too. The public cemetery system and corporate cemetery can be managed only by minimum ordinary cares unlike private tomb system requiring a lot of cost and efforts to maintain it.
Here are solutions this paper offers. Grouping system (The public or corporate cemeteries) can be an indispensable condition to settle down ‘The Periodic Burial Regulation’. If government adheres to Current private tomb system causing only illegal tombs, the effectiveness of Periodic Burial Regulation can fall into failure. Second, to exclude to apply Periodic Burial Regulation to the pre-existing tombs has radical problem. Third, the current system has too long Tomb Establishing Term and little options to choose. So within current status, the effectiveness of the Periodic Burial Regulation is uncertain. To solve all the problems mentioned above this paper presents ways to shorten the basic term and the times of term extension.
Next point, there is no plan for processing the tombs whose establishing term is to be terminated soon. First, it is urgent to build data bases of tombs and promote declaration rate. Active Promotion activity and computerization for collecting and managing information are required. Second, the central and local authorities need to make task unit to carry out this work and create professional staffs to continue to conduct it.
Finally, when establishment term terminated, the government also has to try to extend related-facilities for prompt law application. Actually, after ‘The Law of Burial and Funeral’in enforcement, cremation has increased a lot. Now in several regions the cremation of general people has already been over the processing capacity. So, from now on, construction of cremation facility and the charnel house should be under the way. In addition, facility for natural funeral is also added according to the new adopted revised ‘The Law of Burial and Funeral’.