New Ban on Chinese Funeral Strippers 

A rather odd custom seems to have emerged in China during the latter part of the 20th Century that the Chinese government has now decided to completely ban. It seems that when people die and their families wanted to make sure there are plenty of mourners at the funeral to show that the person had been well known and respected by the masses, strippers were hired to sing and dance and remove their clothing. Some of the strippers even performed with snakes in order to attract larger crowds to the deceased’s funeral. This brought a lot of people to the services. A lot. And it made the guy look like he had been extremely popular, and loved by everyone, so of course this made the families happy in their grief. 

According to Chinese custom, a large crowd at a funeral would also be a harbinger that good fortune would come to the deceased in his afterlife. “It’s to give them face,” according to one villager, “otherwise almost no one would come to the funeral."

The practice might seem a bit strange to you and me, but apparently it made sense to the Chinese, and stripper performances became rather commonplace, at least until the mid 1980's when the government passed laws against full nudity in public. Even so, the practice continued to occur regularly with professional singing and dancing groups over the next few decades until last Thursday when the Chinese Ministry of Culture told police to crack down on the performances.

Pictures that were taken last month during a funeral in the city of Handan were widely circulated over the Internet showing a dancer removing her bra in front of parents and children of the recently deceased. A spokesperson for The Ministry of Culture also cited “obscene” performances in Jiangsu, another Chinese province, and warned the public that there would be a crackdown on these "lascivious last rites."

In the Handan incident, the Red Rose Song and Dance Troupe performed a strip-tease after the funeral. The group took off their clothes after performing a traditional song-and-dance routine, the ministry said. Six of the performers were cited for violating public security regulations. The group's manager, surnamed Li, was jailed for 15 days and fined 70,000 yuan (over $11,000) by authorities for "corrupting the social atmosphere."

Ah, it seems this healthy and, er, unnatural tradition may be coming to a close. What a shame. I wonder if the deceased will miss the attention. Maybe not?