香港墓地短缺日益严重
Hong Kong, one of the most densely packed spots on the planet, is running out of places to bury its dead — leaving thousands of corpses either in limbo or in six-year resting plots before being exhumed and cremated.
The territory, home to 8m people on a tiny spit of land, epitomises the twin problems of land scarcity and an ageing population. Deaths each year have risen from about 25,000 three decades ago to more than 43,000 in 2013.
这块有着800万人口的弹丸之地深受两个问题的困扰：土地稀缺与人口老龄化。2013年，香港每年的人口死亡数已由30年前的2.5万左右增加至逾4.3万。“We have 20,000-30,000 urns of ashes in this area right now,” said Betsy Ma, a funeral parlour director. “This is our responsibility. After the ceremony where do they put [them]? The government cannot provide enough space.”
“我们这里现在有2万至3万瓮骨灰，”一家殡仪馆的主管Betsy Ma称，“这是我们的责任。葬礼结束后骨灰放在哪？政府无法提供足够的地方。”
Undertakers keep the ashes at the back of their shops until a permanent resting space is found. This means the deceased also spend longer in funeral-parlour limbo, depriving families of a dignified resting place for their loved ones. Bills are rising too, fittingly for a place where the living also pay some of the highest prices in the world for shoebox-sized apartments.
殡仪人员只能把逝者的骨灰临时存放在殡仪馆后面，直到它们找到一个永久的安放地。这意味着逝者在殡仪管暂时停放的时间里，逝者的家人无法为他们所爱的人找到一个有尊严的安息地。费用也在增加，对于一个就连活人都在为住上鞋盒大小的公寓支付世界上最昂贵居住费用的地方而言，这种情况倒也合情合理。The Chinese territory’s Food, Environment and Hygiene Department is debating more than doubling the cost of burial to HK$6,670 (US$860) in order to “recover the full cost of providing the relevant goods and services”.
中国香港特别行政区食物环境卫生署(Food, Environment and Hygiene Department)正在讨论将安葬费用提高逾一倍至6670港元（合860美元），以便“收回提供相关物品和服务的全部成本”。Bills are swelling even for those who choose the more space-efficient niches of the city’s columbariums, giant locker-like repositories in which ashes are kept. There are proposals to more than double the price of keeping an urn in a niche from HK$140 to HK$345. The government has responded by building more public columbariums, two of which added almost 25,000 spaces last June.
即使对于那些选择香港骨灰龛场更节省空间的壁龛的人，费用也在上涨。骨灰龛场是存放骨灰的、如巨型寄存柜般的贮存库。有人建议将骨灰龛位的费用由140港元增加逾一倍至345港元。为应对这一问题，香港政府正在建造更多的公共骨灰龛场，去年6月有两家龛场增加了将近2.5万个龛位。Applications for columbarium niches almost doubled to 23,235 between 2010 and 2014, with the average waiting time increasing from two and a half years to four and a half. While waiting for a permanent resting place, it costs HK$80 a month to keep ashes in temporary storage facilities.
2010年至2014年间，骨灰龛位的申请数量几乎增加了一倍至23235个，每个申请的平均等待时间由两年半增加至四年半。在等待永久安放地期间，骨灰停放在临时贮存设施的费用为每月80港元。Sage International, the Hong Kong-listed funeral services group that is Ms Ma’s employer, has started to encourage its clients to use an alternative way to commemorate their loved ones — turning their ashes into gemstones.
仁智国际(Sage International)是一家在香港上市的殡葬服务集团，Betsy Ma便是该集团的员工。该集团已开始鼓励其顾客采用另一种方式纪念他们所爱的人——把其骨灰转变为钻石。Ms Ma said a few hundred customers each year choose this glittering way to commemorate the deceased. She has even used the service herself. “This is my father,” she said, pointing at the stone in her earring.
Betsy Ma称，每年有数百名顾客选择用这种“闪闪发光”的方式来纪念逝者。就连她自己也选择了这种服务。“这是我父亲，”她指着自己耳环上的钻石说。
