| Chinese people values the Confucian tradition of " eternal peace acquired by burial" Shanghai western concessions back to 1890s adapted the practice of modern cremation, which challenged this tradition. From the observation of the basic track of the practice of modern China’s cremation, completely cremating bodies to prevent disease risk, and relieving the cemetery in an increasingly crowded urban environment, which were major threat to the health of the entire city, was originally the purpose of cremation. In modern Europe and the United States, cremation is regarded as a symbol of "progress" and "health", concession Western elites, such as Dr. Noel, spared no effort to advocate and established China’s first modern crematorium, Bubbling well crematorium. However, in the beginning, the disjuncture between cremation, long-term burial tradition, and the underlying believe of resurrection of the Christian community, lead to many aspects of the question and the criticism.On the other hand, the Buddhist practice of cremation, prevailing in the period of song and yuan, up to the end of the Qing Dynasty, still popular in Shanghai among subaltern people, which was suppressed by Confucian elite. However, with the western modern cremation carried out in the concession, Chinese elites began to slowly come to accept of modern cremation,and at the same time, the recipient of cremation as a gauge between "progress" and "backward". From the point of view of local public opinion, burial indicated the unsanitary habits and superstition.Due to the ideal of nationalism and the consideration of promoting health in the city, they called on the nation to enact administrative rules and regulations, in order to promote modern cremation, which entails a distinct elite thinking. Problem is, to Wu Lien-teh and other Chinese medical elite, their experience of cremation was mainly from virulent pandemic and epidemic prevention. Thus they often underestimated the "stubbornness" of local people. Their desire of promoting modern cremation among common people of Shanghai met many practical difficulties.Civil institutions, such as Pushan villa and other benevolent institutions of shanghai back to republic of china, cooperation with concession health department and Shanghai City Health to bury the unwanted corpses in the city. During the beginning of Japanese invasion, in response to a large number of dead bodies and a large influx of refugees brought by the war, those institution adapted the practice of cremation. But once the situation stabilized, back to the rhythm of daily life, burial customs becomes spontaneous choice of civil society, rather than cremation. After the war of resistance against Japan, for the sake of urban environmental sanitation, the conflict between health administration agencies and benevolent institutions intensified over the issue of whether or not to and how to cremate the unwanted corpses. Despite the authoritarian tendency of national health authorities, they had to rely on civil institutions as Pushan villa, to cope with the problem.In the current research of medical history, there are many criticisms about the "progressiveness" of modernity. Different with topics such as quarantine and so on, which was accepted and adapted right away in modern China, the acceptance and practice of cremation in modern China is not a story of triumphant success. Those "non modern" factors, traditional burial custom being an example, are closely related to this issue. Given the bumping historical course of cremation in Shanghai, further study in this field may shed some light to the complexity and ambiguity of modernity. |
PDF Full Text Request