We've been passing a lot of these tombs over the past couple days in Jiangxi. The grasses in the front appear white because they are covered with ice from the ice storm the night before. From what I understand, burying the dead is illegal in China; but like many things, that can be solved by paying a fine. The reason for the ban is that China is short on arable land. After the famine of the Great Leap Forward, the government has emphasized a need to be self-supporting in food production, estimating that approximately 120 million hectares need to be kept under till. A preference for burials over cremations is probably not the biggest problem, however. Despite national mandates, many local governments rely on illegal land appropriations and sales to developers for fiscal revenue. This, combined with the desertification we've talked about before, means China is barely above its self-supporting line. The Ministry of Land estimates that at the end of 2008, China had 121.7 million hectares of arable land remaining.
