ECNS, April 2 -- An article titled "Why do public memorial ceremonies become more and more serious?" was published in the April 2 edition of Hong Kong's Wen Hui Bao. It said that as Tomb Sweeping Day is approaching, all sorts of grand public memorial ceremonies will be held across China in turn again. These "public memorials" which spend millions or even billions of yuan at a time cannot make such an economic show gorgeous, it is unknown. Therefore, some people pointed out that this was a typical case of "squandering ancestors' property without pain".
The following is an excerpt from the article:
The latest version of Modern Chinese Dictionary explained the meaning of "public memorial" as follows: public memorial means that public organizations or social personages hold sacrificial rites to express condolences to the deceased. Interestingly, different from the sorrowful word context, our public memorials are always jubilant. At least, some people are secretly pleased in that solemnity.
We don't talk about whether the "mourning" and "generation cohesion" of public memorial activities can complete moral significance reconstruction. In terms of the author's thinking ability and knowledge depth and breadth, he cannot rival those experts. Then I would like to say something on the topic of "culture providing a stage and economy performing a play" which has irrefutable moral force in economy.
There is no need to say much about culture providing a stage because it is just borrowing the skin of culture to build a stage. After a while of clamor, the spirit of culture is abandoned in the wilderness, ignored by anyone, because it is only a prop after all.
Let's look at the economy performing a play. Whenever talking about the economy, the ratio of input to output is used as a criterion for judging whether the economy successfully performs a play. Only data are listed as follows: Shaoxing's Great Yu Memorial Ceremony cost more than 200 million yuan; Henan's Yanhuang huge sculpture cost 180 million yuan; the Nüwa Memorial Ceremony in Zhushan County, Hubei Province, a key national poverty-stricken county, cost 15 million yuan; recently, Lintao County, Gansu Province spent 80 million yuan to build "Laozi Culture Park". And so on. Due to limited space, they cannot be listed in detail. Whether these "public memorials" which spend millions or even billions of yuan at a time can perform such an economic show gorgeously is unknown. Therefore, some people pointed out that this was a typical case of "squandering ancestors' property without pain".
Perhaps we should not speak so harshly. But if we carefully study the meaning of "public memorial", we will find that "public memorial" should not be synonymous with "government memorial". Then why are governments so keen on taking out their ancestors to dry mildew in the sun? Then we might as well expose those who can be secretly pleased in public memorial activities.
Apparently, local common people can only watch the hustle and bustle in grand public memorial activities. The only ones who can really see some "tricks" are organizers who can benefit from them. Note that the author uses the word "benefit", not "make profit", because "make profit" has a derogatory flavor. We temporarily ignore possible gray transactions in large-scale construction activities carried out due to public memorials because there is no evidence, of course, we cannot make random remarks. So we cannot abuse the vulgar saying of "making money in a noisy place". Even if there is no money to make in a noisy place, there is still invisible income. A public memorial captures nationwide attention. As the popularity rises, political achievements are also "remarkable". How can such plays performed by borrowing culture to provide a stage lack markets?
However, Premier Wen Jiabao said the other day that in the next five years, he decided to promote fiscal system reform to make people's money better serve people's interests. Then, do the plays performed by borrowing culture to provide a stage still have markets? People's money is watched by the people themselves. People's money no longer seeks benefits for "ancestors" to dry mildew in the sun. Do public memorials still have markets? Therefore, I would like to advise everyone to hurry up to watch the grand public memorial ceremony. (by Zhang Jingji)