***In China, the dead now have a chance to meet their maker in style. ***

ZHANG Kai's funeral business is a living example of the limitless scope of the entrepreneurial spirit in China.

Indeed, the Beijing Resting Souls Company (BRSC) is the only funeral establishment in the country that offers people's water-borne ceremony' for the ashes of their dear departed

For 600 yuan (US$69, the urn bearing the ashes is taken by a Chinese naval ship to sea and is accorded a three-whistle salute, the unfurling of the BRSC funeral banner and a special requiem played by a full orchestra while tearful relatives bid their final farewell. The ceremony is videotaped for. posterity.

BRSC has consigned about a hundred souls to a watery grave since the company began operations last May. A Beijing Housing Administration Bureau ex-bureaucrat. 44-year-old Zhang says he was inspired to open the BRSC by the funereal fate of past Chinese communist luminaries.

If Premier Zhou Enlai. President Liu Shaoql and Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang

"all had their ashes scattered across the homeland", says Zhang, "this service could also be provided to the common Chinese and enable them to rest their souls in nature".

But Zhang points to another compelling reason to provide the 'water-borne ceremony': the overcrowding of final resting places for urns in Chinese cities.

He says Beijing and Shanghai, where cremation is most popular, are finding it hard to cope with all their cemeteries crammed with urns and caskets. This has reached such proportions that the Beijing crematorium has issued notice that ashes can be stored for only three years at the most.

"From these facts. I realised that people might welcome the Idea of scattering ashes in nature." Zhang explains. "It's the best means of solving the ’ lack of space."

But scattering the ashes of • their beloved at sea is a novel concept to Chinese who still

favour burying their dead, despite state laws forbidding the practice due to lack of space.

A 1990 official circular says: "More than five million corpses were buried in China every year, which had turned at least 6.700 hectares of cultivated land into burial ground. As a result, some 65.000 farmers had lost their rice lands."'

Even then, it Is very difficult to change tradition, authorities here admit in private. Says one official: 'Tn the countryside. people still hold elaborate burials, mostly with the local government turning a blind eye."

"During the Cultural Revolution. traditional funerals were strictly forbidden." he adds. "It was only in the 1980s that the prohibition was relaxed and old customs immediately returned without the slightest

change." •

"It is difficult to change traditional funeral trends." Zhang admits. 'The traditional custom of burial means that it will be a long time before a new service for scattering ashes really takes off."

But he says he is targeting those newly-afflueqt by the government's market reforms. Zhang is confident his services will appeal to the emerging rich in the cities who want a "special" parting from their beloved one and have the money to make the occasion a memorable one.

A sociologist from a local university says Zhang is on the right track. He points out, "In a changing society, everyone is busy making money, so they have no time to be filial. Thus, to some extent, people would want to use an elaborate fu-

neral as a kind of compensation.”

Zhang claims the govern ment is keen on seeing his project succeed. The Beijing Notary Office is even notarising the entire ritual (or the company, he says. In addition, the state-owned Beijing Insurance Company has agreed to pay 3.000 yuan (US$343) per urn to cover " ash dispersal or storage accidents

Zhang says he had to give personal touches to the entire funeral package to make it an attractive marketing proposition. "I w&s clearly aware that I had to design and deal with the solemn ritual very carefully." he says.

To syfnbolise the "return to nature”, for example. Zhang came up with the intertwined patterns of the globe, sky and sea on the BRSC banner.

Also, the sorrow of the traditional requiems did not covey the beauty of nature, so Zhang commissioned a famous Chinese composer to write a musical-dirge for 35.000 yuan

(US$4,000). Thus. Zhang says proudly : The first 25-minute Chinese lamentation symphony was born."

Zhang says BRSC is flourishing, attracting even overseas Chinese. He charges them more, though, asking for a US$600 flat fee for the ceremony. aside from US$200 for each Relative who wants to watch. Relatives to locals pay only the yuan equivalent of US$23 each to attend.

BRSC also offers an air dispersal service’ for high-flying deceased, with the ashes dropped from an aircraft. But Zhang says it has proved less popular than the water service, with only ten customers so far choosing to have the ashes of their loved ones strewn from thousands of metres above ground.

Zhang reckons this is because the price tag for the airborne funerals are a bit steep : 800 yuan (US$91) for domestic customers and US$800 for overseas Chinese and foreigners.

Still, if you are rich (and dead) in China, that may be the way to go.