HOTEL FOR THE DEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 May 1937, Page 11

HOTEL FOR THE DEAD

A CHINESE VENTURE. On the outskirts of Canton, amid a region of malodorous market gardens and tangled suburbs, lies one of the singular buildings of the world —the Hotel of the Dead, writes Max Lamshed in the “Adelaide Chronicle.” In the days before white men came to China with their strange ideas of city cleaning, sanitation, and disposal of the dead, the hills about every town were a vast undemarcated mausoleum, where relatives buried their dead when and where they would. So it is to-day that the hill slopes everywhere are dotted with graves—curious pieces of masonry brought to a point at one end and flowing away at either side like the prow of a ship. With the inculcation of modern ideas cemetery areas were allotted, and promiscuous burial no longer permitted. The Hotel of the Dead marks a hailing place in the translation of the body from the love and affection of the home to the isolation of the tomb. While it resides there, relatives have the consolation that they lived one has not wholly gone from them. A privately-owned venture, the Hotel of the Dead has little to distinguish it as it is approached by a shrublined path. From an irregular-shaped tiled court open dozens of rooms, some large, some small. Their walls are brightly hung. Screening the rear of the chamber is a coloured partition. Behind it is the sanctuary, where, swathed in voluminous lengths of linen, the body of the departed lies in a coffin, which reveals his degree by its richness and adornment. Before the screen is a table bearing flowers, ornaments, and a tiny dish of food, from -which the spirit of the dead may be nourished during the remainder of its mundane existence. Overhead is a great spiral of sandalwood, or some lesser-favoured composition, which smoulders slowly from apex to base, perfuming the chamber with the sickly sweetness of incense. Near it are parchments or scrolls extolling the virtues of the dead, or, if the departed is of the modern regime, there may be photogrpahs.

The “hotel” is conducted on a prosaic basis. For hte largest chambers, some of them little less than salons, the rent may be 30 dollars a week, equivalent to a little more than £2 in our money, or even 50 dollars. For those less pretentious the rate is correspondingly less, while for the smallest, little more than closets, it may be five or ten dollars.

In the “hotel” the bodies rest until the advent of what has ( been determined as a lucky day. Then they are taken to the burial ground. Providentially—as the cynically-minded may conjecture—lucky days occur more frequently in the case, of those of lowly estate, and on whom the expense of an extended lodging might bear heavily, than on that of those of higher caste. The poor may remain only a. week or two, the well-to-do for months. The bodies of the very rich may lodge there for an indeterminate time, even may never leave. And the reason for it all? These transient sepulchres are the altars at which the bereaved household worships its gods, and pays its tribute to the departed. Let the guide explain —“Suppose the grave be far away in the country, the family able to go there to worship very seldom, perhaps only once a month; it’, they belong to poor, not even, that; here, they close by, and can come cheaply whenever they like, perhaps two, thiee times a week.” . The Hotel of the Dead is not a Pleasant place. Sunshine seems a stranger there. For all its bright colours, it has a sombre brooding and over it hangs the mustiness of tombs.