Special concert bids farewell to club friends
Musicians take part in a special concert for members of the Shanghai Cancer Recovery Club.
A concert offered genuine comfort for members of the Shanghai Cancer Recovery Club on Thursday.
The group of cancer patients have decided to return to nature when they die, doing without a permanent urn or even gravestone. They are choosing to rest under trees and flowers to save the city's scarce land resources through eco-friendly burials.
Surrounded by lush greenery and soothing music, members of the club bid farewell to nine friends at the Xi'ai Forest of Fushouyuan Cemetery in suburban Qingpu District.
The departed were interred in a fan-shaped flowerbed with each biodegradable urn occupying just 0.05 square meters.
A special concert offered comfort and encouragement to friends and relatives of the departed.
A special concert was held, delivering strong encouragement to club members who recalled the last moments of their friends, applauding their optimistic spirit in fighting cancer.
The families of the perished wiped the biodegradable urn based on tradition and placed the urns at the flowerbed.
A total of 128 members of the club have had their ashes interred at the forest jointly established by the club and the tomb under an eco-friendly approach since 2006.
Chinese people pay respects to their ancestors during the Qingming Festival, which is also known as tomb-sweeping day and falls on April 4 this year.
The Fushouyuan Public Welfare Development Fund donated 100,000 yuan to the club on the day, which will be used to help needy club members pay for medical treatment.
The concert offers a warm and healing comfort, and ensures that the departed are leaving with utmost dignity, said Zhao Junhui, general manager assistant at the cemetery.
"Eco-friendly burial is gaining increasing acceptance among the public, and we are keeping promoting land-saving burial means and innovating more such means under an eco-friendly approach," he added.
