Expats
Somber passage
By Todd Balazovic (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-03 11:26
It's a subject most expats prefer to avoid, but the question still nags from time to time - what will happen to their body if they die in China?
The grim thought is likely never fully explored, or the possibility planned for, so expatriates who meet an unfortunate demise in China often leave their friends and family dealing with the complex and expensive task of relocating their remains back home.
Many have been assisted by Wilfried Verbruggen, who has spent the last five years traveling throughout China collecting deceased expatriates and delivering them to their loved ones. Verbruggen is the director of Roseates, a Beijing-based body repatriation service.
The 57-year-old Belgian founded Roseates in 2004 after he was contacted by several Belgian funeral home directors, former clients of his logistics company, requesting help extracting bodies from China.
At the time the body repatriation industry was controled by just a couple of companies, he said.
"There were really only a few that offered the service and they could charge as much as they wanted," he said.
He said that in addition to Roseates, there have been an increasing number of insurance companies offering body repatriation services in Beijing over the last five years.
"There are now an almost unlimited number of companies that will offer this service," Verbruggen said. "But we are still the only company that exclusively provides body repatriation services."
Roseates, with just three full-time employees, services about 100 deceased expatriates out of an estimated 1,600 expat deaths throughout China each year.
Verbruggen said that the No 1 cause of death among expatriates is heart failure.
"The heart failures are a result of underlying disease, simple weakness of the heart, or a pre-existing condition combined with unusual efforts, conditions or altitudes," he said.
The second highest death toll comes from excessive alcohol use.
The process of repatriation begins once a body is discovered and reported to an embassy, which then contacts the next of kin. If the next of kin cannot be located, the power of attorney - the power to make crucial decisions regarding the deceased - is passed on to the embassy.
Those given the power to make decisions then select a funeral home in the deceased's home country where the process of body repatriation begins with preserving the body through embalmment.
The cost of embalmment in Beijing costs between 10,000 to 15,000 yuan, almost twice that in most Western countries, said Verbruggen. Outside Beijing, the price can be more than double that if there are no government-registered funeral homes.
Verbruggen said it is due to the small number of funeral homes equipped and trained to embalm bodies.
"This is an area where the funeral service and body repatriation industries need to see the most improvement," Verbruggen said.
In Beijing, a city of more than 15 million people, only the Beijing Babaoshan Cemetery is approved by the China Funeral Association to offer embalmment services. In Shanghai four funeral homes are equipped for embalmment.
Once a body is preserved, a translated death certificate and a quarantine certificate are obtained by Roseates, whose job then becomes providing a coffin that meets international shipment standards.
"After all of the paperwork is done, we book a flight back to the home country," he said.
The body is then shipped using whatever means of air cargo is available. Both commercial airlines, where coffins are stored in special locations in the luggage compartment, and cargo airplanes are used, Verbruggen said.
From start to finish, the process costs from 75,000 to 85,000 yuan depending on the destination country.
For bodies that remain in China, the only viable option is cremation due to the high cost of burial, he said.
"You can find places that will provide burials in more rural areas, but the cost is extremely high, maybe three or four times the price in Western countries," he said, noting the price of burial at its lowest is more than 100,000 yuan.
The reason for the high price of burial in China is expensive cost of land, Verbruggen said.
