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ANTHROPOLOGY | ASIAN STUDIES K I P In rural China funerals are conducted locally, on village land by village elders. N I But in urban areas, people have neither land for burials nor elder relatives to S conduct funerals. Chinese urbanization, which has increased drastically in recent decades, involves the creation of cemeteries, state-run funeral homes, T and small private funerary businesses. The Funeral of Mr. Wang examines H social change in urbanizing China through the lens of funerals, the funerary E industry, and practices of memorialization. It analyzes changes in family life, patterns of urban sociality, transformations in economic relations, the politics F U of memorialization, and the echoes of these changes in beliefs about the dead and ghosts. N E “This book is highly original and addresses a topic of central importance to R THE FUNERAL OF MR. WANG understanding Chinese family life and the limits of a party-state’s regulatory A power over the society and individual citizens. Original and systematic field- L work is expertly used to illustrate core arguments. To my knowledge there is O no competing ethnography.” F LIFE, DEATH, AND GHOSTS IN URBANIZING CHINA Deborah Davis, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Yale University M ANDREW B. KIPNIS “The Funeral of Mr. Wang is a vivid portrait of how the transition from life to R death is negotiated in the midst of a rapidly transforming urban Chinese so- . W ciety. Showing how death in contemporary China generates interconnected processes of cultural recombination among family members, funeral service A providers, bureaucratic regulators, strangers, and ghosts, this book will be crit- N ical reading for all students of China and of death in contemporary societies.” G David A. Palmer, coauthor of The Religious Question in Modern China IL NI UFE ANDREW B. KIPNIS is Professor of Anthropology at The Chi- RB, D AE nese University of Hong Kong, coeditor of Hau: Journal of Ethnographic NA Theory, and author of From Village to City: Social Transformation in a IZINTH, A Chinese County Seat. GN CD H G INH AO S A free version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California TS Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Cover design: Sandy Drooker. Cover illustrations: Photographs by Andrew B. Kipnis. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS WWW.UCPRESS.EDU Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Sue Tsao Endowment Fund in Chinese Studies. The Funeral of Mr. Wang The Funeral of Mr. Wang Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China Andrew B. Kipnis UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS University of California Press Oakland, California © 2021 by Andrew Kipnis This work is licensed under a Creative Commons [CC-BY-NC-ND] license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Suggested citation: Kipnis, A. B. The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.105 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kipnis, Andrew B., author. Title: The funeral of Mr. Wang : life, death, and ghosts in urbanizing China / Andrew B. Kipnis. Description: [Oakland, California] : University of California Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2021001644 (print) | lccn 2021001645 (ebook) | isbn 9780520381971 (paperback) | isbn 9780520381995 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Funeral rites and ceremonies—China—21st century. | Death—Social aspects—China. | Social change—China. Classification: LCC GT3283.A2 .K57 2021 (print) | LCC GT3283.A2 (ebook) | DDC 393/.9309510905—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001644 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001645 Manufactured in the United States of America 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix 1. The Funeral of Mr. Wang 1 2. Of Transitions and Transformations 18 3. Of Space and Place: Separation and Distinction in the Homes of the Dead 28 4. Of Strangers and Kin: Moral Family and Ghastly Strangers in Urban Sociality 52 5. Of Gifts and Commodities: Spending on the Dead While Providing for the Living 71 6. Of Rules and Regulations: Governing Mourning 92 7. Of Souls and Spirits: Secularization and its Limits 111 8. Of Dreams and Memories: A Ghost Story From a Land Where Haunting Is Banned 129 Epilogue 145 Notes 149 References 153 Index 163 List of Illustrations MAPS 1. Chinese cities mentioned in this book xi 2. Nanjing 33 FIGURES 1. Varieties of spirit money 11 2. Paraphernalia stalls at cemetery 16 3. Grave relocation compensation notice 36 4. Wall burials at the Garden of Merit 41 5. Gravesites at the Garden of Merit 41 6. Grave of Communist martyr at the Garden of Merit 41 7. Humanism Memorial Museum 43 8. Section of New Fourth Army Memorial 44 9. Chen Duxiu’s tomb 45 10. Wall burials in Fu Shou Yuan 45 11. Children’s section of Fu Shou Yuan 46 12. Tombs in a non-elite graveyard 48 13. Trash in a non-elite graveyard 48 14. Tombstone with names painted in red and black 60 15. Sign near Tianjin graveyard 106 16. Carved depiction of filial piety at cemetery 124 17. Graffiti 131