Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #445

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
China Vows To Crack Down On Funeral Strippers
By Samuel Osborne
China has launched a fresh crackdown on funeral strippers.
The Ministry of Culture said it would
target "obscene, pornographic and vulgar perform- ances" at funerals and weddings.
It followed reports
in the state
run Global
Times newspaper about roaring crowds, applaud- ing and cursing as women per- formed at funer- als.
The tabloid claimed that they sauntered into the crowd and rubbed mens crotches, while occasionally reminding them not to take pic-
tures.
The culture min- istry set up hot- lines to offer mon- etary rewards for those who report "funeral mis- deeds" in 19 cities in Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces.
Some rural com- munities in China believe hiring per- formers can
increase atten- dance at funerals, with high atten- dance seen as a way of honouring the deceased.
In a bid to show off their dispos- able income and boost numbers, some households pay out more than their annual incomes for strip- pers, but
also actors, singers
and comedians, t he Global
Times reported.
Beijing
first banned funeral strippers in 2015, after two cases where exotic dancers staged "obscene performances."
At the funeral in Hebei province,
two
strippers “wearing revealing clothes danced on a stage at a public square in our vil- lage at night,” an eyewitness said at the time.
Authorities also arrested six exot- ic dancers at the funeral of an eld- erly resident in Handan.
Five people were detained in Jiangsu in 2006 for "obscene per- formances" fol- lowing striptease acts at a farmer's funeral, where 200 people were said to have attended.
One expert quot- ed in the Global Times report part- ly attributed the
practice to fertility worship.
"In some local cultures, dancing with erotic ele- ments can be used to convey the deceased's wishes of being blessed with many children," Huang Jianxing, a university profes- sor, said.
"I don't take the performances as 'trash of tradition- al rural culture.' It has an inheri- tance of local civi- lization," he added.
"Rather than sim- ply decrying them, it is more important for the authorities to pro- vide the rural people with finer cultural products.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine