Editor’s note: All names in this report are pseudonyms chosen by the interviewees who are concerned for their safety.The Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, is here and Zhang Jun has not yet collected his father’s cremated ashes from the Wuchang Funeral Parlor.There is a Chinese saying, “Burial brings peace to the deceased” and the thought of his 76-year-old father in that cold funeral home, still wandering like a lonely ghost, made tears roll down his face.Zhang’s father died Feb. 1 from COVID-19. After the death, Zhang had trouble sleeping. In the middle of the night, he thought he heard someone calling: “Son, why don’t you come and pick up your dad? You don’t want him anymore?”Every single day, Zhang wants to bring his father’s ashes home. He has a lot to say to him.In early March, he called the funeral home, one of the eight in Wuhan where the virus emerged late last year. He was told that he had to wait for a notice from the city’s Epidemic Prevention and Control Command Center. He called again in mid-March. The response was the same–wait for the government’s notice.Finally, at the end of March, Zhang was told he could collect the ashes.But he didn’t want to go.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
People wearing face masks line up outside a Hankou Bank branch in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, March 31, 2020.A Chinese reporter who managed to get into the Hankou Funeral House described the scene to VOA. Security was very tight, with more staff, police, security guards, community social workers and volunteers than family members, the reporter said. Inside the funeral home, he recognized several plainclothes police officers and saw them approaching mourners who attempted to take photos of the scene with their cellphones or tried to strike up a conversation with others.In much the same way it is attempting to quash questions about its response to the epidemic by People wearing protective suits are seen in Biandanshan cemetery in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus disease outbreak, April 1, 2020.Two months after her mother’s death, 40-year-old World Peace wails like a child from time to time. She says she is crying for her mother, and for Wuhan. “China has the best people and the worst government.”She joined a WeChat group formed by people who had also lost loved ones in the epidemic. Zhang was among them.While many people are saddened by their loss, they are angry too, Zhang told VOA they want the government to offer explanations.“My father’s death was not a normal death. He died of a man-made disaster,” Zhang said. “We demand that the names of those who deceived us, who covered it up, those so-called officials and experts to be published. Otherwise, we are not able to explain it to our dead relatives.”WeChat groupThe authorities viewed the WeChat group as a thorn in the eye. Many group members told VOA they have received threatening phone calls from the police. On the last day of March, two police officers knocked on the door of the man who established the group. They took away his cellphone and forcibly disbanded the group.For the past week or so, cherry blossoms have been casting white-pink clouds throughout the city. The Wuhan University campus, a favored viewing site, is empty.Chinese media have reported Beijing’s plan to remember the COVID-19 dead on Tomb-Sweeping Day. People have been requested to be silent for three minutes starting at 10 a.m. as horns and alarms sound throughout the county. “It’s a show they put on for the world to watch. If we as family members of the dead are not allowed to participate, what kind of mourning is that?”Zhang wants to leave Wuhan and head south. The city broke his heart, he said. One day he will return—on the day he can collect his father’s ashes and bury him without being watched by strangers.Zhang said this was his plan as a son trying to defend the final dignity of his father.
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