Looking for a way to give a departed loved one a send-off everyone will remember?
How about hiring strippers to perform at the funeral?
In some parts of rural China, this is not considered absurd, but a good idea.
In February, police busted groups performing striptease acts at funerals in North China's Hebei province and in East China's Jiangsu province. A man named Li, who runs the otherwise benign sounding Red Rose Singing and Dance Troupe, in the city of Handan, Hebei, was detained for 15 days and fined more than $11,000, according to China's government. Photos of the show, predictably, ended up online.
Three strippers who performed in Shuyang County in Jiangsu were detained, while those behind the show were charged with organizing obscene performances.
This week, China's Ministry of Culture told people to stop hiring strippers and vowed to work with police to stamp out the practice.
"This type of illegal operation disrupts order of the cultural market in the countryside and corrupts social morals and manners," the ministry said in a statement.
Why do people hire strippers to perform at funerals?
Typically, rural families do it to drum up crowds. A 2006 story by the state-run New China News Service said villagers in parts of Jiangsu believed that "the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honored." For other families, the displays are a way to show off wealth and filial piety for the deceased.
The practice isn't isolated to rural China — the island of Taiwan also has funeral strippers who perform on the tops of trucks to make for a faster getaway.
