Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on the rural tradition of hiring strippers for funeral ceremonies, the country’s Ministry of Culture has announced.
According to state media outlet Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Culture plans to “launch a new campaign targeting Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces for their obscene and vulgar performances at weddings, funerals and temple fairs.”
Chinese state media announced in 2015 a similar campaign; announcing a fight to eradicate the practice in 2018 suggests that Beijing’s Communist Party failed to impose itself on those in the countryside displeasing it.
This time, citizens will receive access to a “special hotline” where they can report “funeral misdeeds” and will receive a monetary reward.
The outlet claims that it has long been a rural tradition to hire opera singers to “allure mourners and show respect to the deceased,” as it helps “ensure a higher turnout at the deceased’s funeral as a way of honoring the dead and showing ‘filial piety.'”
However, residents in recent years have decided to “show off their disposable incomes” by paying large amounts of money for other forms of entertainment such as actors, singers, comedians, and strippers in an attempt to “comfort the bereaved and entertain the mourners.”
Such a ceremony is described in detail:
Scantily clad women in sexy lingerie and revealing clothes showing off their bodies in front an electronic screen displaying a black-and-white headshot of the deceased with text reading “We offer profound condolences for the death of this man” are now a modern part of funerals in some rural areas of China.
The crowd is pushed to climax, roaring with laughter, whistling, applauding and cursing. As the performers saunter into the audience to giggle [sic] their breasts and rub men’s crotches, a reminder of “no photographs allowed” can occasionally be heard.
Chinese authorities first announced their intention to crack down on the “bizarre and increasingly popular” ceremonies in 2015 because they were “uncivilized” and “corrupting the social atmosphere.”
Yet such entertainment, in fact, dates back to the 1600s and the Qing dynasty, where it was common to provide entertainment at funerals, although the Times contends that stripteases were only “added to the funeral menu” in the 1990s.
One solution apparently proposed by a “vocal minority” is providing the rural population with greater spiritual enrichment.
“Entertainment facilities provided by the public sector are not fairly adaptive for rural residents,” the outlet quoted Professor Wei of the Central University of Finance and Economics Culture and Media department as saying. “Such deficiency leave farmers’ spiritual life hollow and give rise to porn and striptease.”
Despite being widely available, prostitution and sexual services are disapproved of by the ruling Communist Party, who view it as against their Marxist values and fear its links with organized crime.
The communist regime typically has difficulty in controlling their rural populations who fail to adhere to their vision of modern China. Last November, authorities said they would begin cutting off poverty relief packages unless rural communities took down images of their Jesus and replace them with images of President Xi Jinping.
As part of the government’s environmental reforms, officials also reduced coal supplies to many areas, although later reversed this decision as many peasants were unable to afford or get access to natural gas and were freezing to death.
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