Bizarre repose

As promised, here are some Chinese Cemetery pictures. The place is like a town, except that all of the people are dead! Many of them are housed in fancy mausoleums like this one, which is quite jarring to see after walking through a really ugly squatter neighborhood next door:















This mausoleum is 3 stories tall! I took this picture from one of the balconies inside:




















This mausoleum is one of the newest--I think one of the people in it only died in 2004. It had tables and chairs inside for visitors, along with ample supplies of fruit and flowers for the dead:




















This cemetery represents an odd combination of religious practices: the provisions for visitors are made mainly because they visit their family members on the Day of the Dead (November 1), which is a Catholic thing. But the provisions for the dead themselves are made as part of a Chinese belief that the dead need all of the same things as the living in the afterlife. Some of the tombs also had special papers inside to be burned to the gods on behalf of the dead. It's all very strange, but fascinating, even for a 3-hour walking tour on a hot Sunday afternoon!