Wednesday, December 2, 1998
Most Relatives Ship Remains from Asia to U.S.
Transfers of remains from overseas graves to California are becoming
so common that they now apparently outnumber instances of sending
immigrants' remains back to their homelands for burial, according to
funeral directors and county health departments' records.
Definitive statewide or nationwide statistics on the practice are not
kept. But Asian families clearly are leading the trend so they can more
easily fulfill cultural and religious obligations to visit parents' and
grandparents' grave sites on memorial days and birthdays.
The return of Gin Gee Tong from China to California this autumn, is evidence of a
growing custom among immigrant families of moving deceased relatives'
remains to the United States.
Henry Kwong, manager of Universal Chung Wah Funeral Directors, estimated that he helps arrange about one transfer of remains a
week from Asia.