Shanghai honors organ donors with monthlong commemorative events
Residents lay flowers to honor organ donors at the Shanghai Fushouyuan Cemetery on Wednesday.
Monthlong commemorative events were held at the Shanghai Fushouyuan Cemetery in Qingpu District on Wednesday, as residents flocked to tombs in tribute of organ and cornea donors.
The names of donors were engraved on 15 monuments, which were adorned with flowers. Amid solemn music, their families and volunteers bowed and laid flowers to pay their respect.
The cemetery said it carved the names of 470 donors whose donations were carried out in the second half of last year, onto the monuments before the Qingming Festival, on April 5 this year, a time when Chinese people pay respects to their ancestors.
"The commemorative area of the cemetery has become a spiritual home for families of the donnors," said Xu Min, deputy general manager of the cemetery.
A resident reads the names of donors on a monument.
As March marks the commemorative month of Shanghai for its organ donors, the cemetery will host monthlong events to remember the perished.
Those attending the ceremony on Wednesday included 20 students and teachers from the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, who had a life education class at the scene. They read poems as commemoration.
Bidding farewell to the world via the means of extension of life is meaningful, and is an exceptional demonstration of the continuation of life, said Chen Yan, associate professor of the institute and a donor.
As of the end of last year, Shanghai had registered 121,600 voluntary organ donors, with 1,018 cases in use. It had also registered 67,000 voluntary cornea donors, with 16,000 among them used.
People pay respect to organ donors.
People lay flowers.
The commemorative area at the tomb
