Tycoonsspend10millionyuanburyingfather
From: Shenzhen Daily
Updated: 2007-12-20 00:12
A Mercedez Benz car carrying a portrait of the deceased father leads 24 other vehicles en route to a Shenzhen cemetery Tuesday. SD-Agencies
FOUR affluent Guangzhou businesspeople arranged a stunningly extravagant funeral for their deceased father in Shenzhen on Tuesday.
The four siblings of the ***-year-old man, identified by his last name Wang, who died of cancer Dec. 12 in Guangzhou, spent more than 10 million yuan (US$1.35 million) on the arrangements, according to a Southern Metropolis Daily report yesterday.
More than 100 family members traveled in 25 cars to escort Wang"s body from Guangzhou to Shenzhen on Tuesday and laid him to rest at the Shenzhen Dapeng Bay Cemetery for Overseas Chinese in Yantian District.
The coffin, made of high-quality wood imported from Myanmar, alone cost some 280,000 yuan. It took more than 10 men to lift it, and a crane to place it in the tomb. The headstone, facing the sea, cost more than 3 million yuan, the report said.
More than 50 Buddhist monks from temples all over Guangdong were invited to pray for the deceased at the burial. Each temple was paid 5,000 yuan per day.
Wang, a native of Jieyang City, Guangdong, was a citizen of the Republic of Guinea.
His second son, aged 37, is president of a group of companies in Guangzhou, and holds more than 5 billion yuan worth of shares in listed firms, the Daily said.
Another 35-year-old son of Wang owns at least two big companies and is a member of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People"s Political Consultative Conference, the province"s top advisory body, and a member of the standing committee of Yangjiang"s top advisory body. He was ranked No. 385 with 210 million yuan on a list of China"s richest in April 2003.
China, which has a longstanding custom of burying the dead, promotes cremations to conserve land and trees. But tomb burials are allowed for overseas Chinese.
Shenzhen Dapeng Bay Cemetery for Overseas Chinese, founded in the 1980s, is China"s first and Shenzhen"s only cemetery for overseas Chinese nationals.
Bao Yugang, a well-known tycoon of Hong Kong, is buried in the cemetery.
Shenzhen Daily