The Influence of Land Scarcity on Funeral Method Preferences in the Chinese Community

Abstract

Chinese public cemeteries in Malaysia, also known as "Yishan," are dedicated burial sites specifically used by the Chinese community for the interment of their deceased loved ones. These cemeteries adhere to Chinese cultural and religious practices related to ancestor veneration and the afterlife. The cemetery land is mostly provided by the local government, and the local association is responsible for managing the cemetery. Since the Yishan located in the city are already nearing saturation, the government cannot afford to allocate land for new Yishan to the relevant guild members, making many Yishan difficult to find. Additionally, Chinese graves occupy more land than those of other races due to the burial practices. Consequently, the Chinese community faces a shortage of burial land, often having to resort to more expensive private cemeteries. This paper is based on a proposal by the Selangor senior exco member, Datuk Teng Chang Khim, to address the issue of land scarcity for Chinese burials. Teng expressed the Malaysia Funeral Association's intention to promote flower burial in Malaysia, a method that uses less land, to alleviate this problem. Therefore, this research aims to identify the funeral methods preferred by the Chinese community and determine their preferences for these methods. In this study, quantitative analysis was adopted to collect data. Central Malacca was chosen as the research location because it is one of the states in Malaysia with a large Chinese population and may face cemetery land scarcity. A total of 384 respondents were needed for this analysis. The results indicate a high preference for flower burial among the respondents. Other methods, such as sea burial and ice burial, also showed satisfactory preference levels. Thus, this research provides insight to the Malaysia Funeral Association that the Chinese community in Malacca is interested in and prefers alternative funeral methods, such as flower burial, which could help address the issue of land scarcity for cemeteries in the future.