China News Service, Beijing, March 28 (Wei Xianghui) As the Qingming Festival is approaching, the ban on the production and sale of paper money in Nantong, Jiangsu has caused controversy.
On March 26, the Nantong Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau and the Nantong Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau issued a notice "Notice on Prohibiting the Manufacturing and Selling of Feudal Superstitious Funeral Supplies" requiring that any unit or individual is prohibited from manufacturing or selling ghost money, paper money, and physical objects in the city. and other feudal superstitious funeral supplies.
The notice stated that anyone who violates the provisions of the notice will be confiscated by the civil affairs department at or above the county level in conjunction with the market supervision and management department at the same level, and may be fined not less than 1 time but not more than 3 times the manufacturing and sales amount. If an act constitutes a violation of public security management, the public security organs shall impose public security administrative penalties in accordance with the law; if it constitutes a crime, criminal liability shall be pursued in accordance with the law.
Screenshot from the "Nantong Release" WeChat public account
Subsequently, a piece of notice caused huge controversy, and doubts came one after another.
In this regard, a staff member of the Nantong Municipal Government Office explained to China News Service that restrictions are only imposed through the production and sales link. During the supervision and execution link, people can apply for administrative review if they have objections to fines and other behaviors.
In fact, similar disputes have occurred in other regions before. Among them, the definition of feudal superstitious funeral supplies is often an issue that causes dissatisfaction among some people.
In some places, ghost currency paper money is included in the feudal superstition funeral items that are prohibited from being made and sold. However, people think that these are just traditional items for sacrifice and are not considered feudal superstition.
Amid the controversy in Nantong, an entry that said "There is no clear prohibition on the sale of paper money in our country's laws" immediately became a hot search on the Internet.
A review by China News Network found that at the national level, there is only the "Funeral Management Regulations" as a guiding document for the management of the funeral industry, and there is no clear legislation yet.
Data map: Customers are buying sacrificial supplies. Photo by Wei Jiaxiu
Regarding the management of funeral equipment and funeral supplies, Article 17 of Chapter 4 of the State Council’s “Funeral Management Regulations (2012 Revision)” that came into effect on January 1, 2013 stipulates that “the manufacture and sale of feudal and superstitious funeral supplies is prohibited. Coffins and other burial supplies are sold in areas where cremation is practiced."
This regulation does not provide a clear definition of "feudal superstitious funeral articles", but it states that the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, the cities where the people's governments of provinces and autonomous regions are located, and the people's governments of larger cities approved by the State Council, Local government regulations may be formulated in accordance with laws and administrative regulations.
In practice, due to the different actual conditions and customs in different places, many local regulations have relatively clear provisions on "feudal superstitious funeral supplies".
For example, in 2023, the Shuangkou Town Government in Beichen District, Tianjin issued a "Notice on Prohibiting the Manufacturing and Sale of Feudal Superstitious Products", which listed a number of specific feudal superstitious funeral products, including but not limited to ghost coins, paper money, etc. "Money" category; "Transportation" category such as cows, paper horses, and paper cars; "Daily necessities" category such as paper figures, paper color TV sets, and paper boxes.
However, in some places, the lack of unified standards makes it difficult to regulate the chaos in the funeral industry.
In 2022, a "Letter on Reply to Proposal No. 2 of the First Session of the 10th County CPPCC" published on the website of the Luoping County Government of Qujing City, Yunnan Province pointed out that in actual law enforcement, there are no specific regulations on "feudal superstitious funeral supplies" According to the legal explanation, there is no clear definition of which funeral supplies belong to feudal superstition. In addition, there are no clear national standards for manufacturing funeral supplies and funeral equipment to follow. The "Funeral Management Regulations" are used to supervise and enforce the funeral supplies market and bring supervision. Great difficulty came.
Data map: Wanan Cemetery, Beijing. Photo by China News Service reporter Jia Tianyong
Sun Shuren, former secretary-general of the China Funeral Association, secretary-general of the National Funeral Standardization Technical Committee, and professor at the Beijing Vocational College of Social Management (Ministry of Civil Affairs Training Center), said in an interview with China News Service, “The essential attribute of funerals is culture, and the most basic function is to do Enlightenment. From the perspective of cultural progress, today's society advocates civilized sacrifices, safe sacrifices, and low-carbon sacrifices. We should change the way of worshiping by burning paper money or paper objects. You can worship with flowers, plant trees in memory, write messages, and remember online, etc. The sacrificial method of modern civilization and ecology."
However, Sun Shuren also mentioned that the reason why Nantong’s announcement caused public controversy also reflects a long-standing problem in the reform of my country’s funeral system, which he called “lag in cultural supply.”
"How to get people to accept new funeral rites and new sacrificial methods cannot only be based on material supply, but also need to be supplemented from the cultural level." Sun Shuren believes that there is now a gap between advocating new methods and reforming old customs, causing people to There is confusion about the funeral reform measures introduced in some places, "The old ones don't work, and I don't know what to do with the new ones."
Sun Shuren put forward two suggestions. On the one hand, we should strengthen the legal process of funerals so that there are laws to follow in the management process; on the other hand, we should strengthen cultural construction so that the people can gradually recognize and accept the new funeral rituals to ensure that the death is peaceful and the funeral is polite.