香港墓地短缺日益嚴重
Hong Kong, one of the most densely packed spots on the planet, is running out of places to bury its dead — leaving thousands of corpses either in limbo or in six-year resting plots before being exhumed and cremated.
The territory, home to 8m people on a tiny spit of land, epitomises the twin problems of land scarcity and an ageing population. Deaths each year have risen from about 25,000 three decades ago to more than 43,000 in 2013.
這塊有着800萬人口的彈丸之地深受兩個問題的困擾：土地稀缺與人口老齡化。2013年，香港每年的人口死亡數已由30年前的2.5萬左右增加至逾4.3萬。“We have 20,000-30,000 urns of ashes in this area right now,” said Betsy Ma, a funeral parlour director. “This is our responsibility. After the ceremony where do they put [them]? The government cannot provide enough space.”
“我們這裏現在有2萬至3萬甕骨灰，”一家殯儀館的主管Betsy Ma稱，“這是我們的責任。葬禮結束後骨灰放在哪？政府無法提供足夠的地方。”
Undertakers keep the ashes at the back of their shops until a permanent resting space is found. This means the deceased also spend longer in funeral-parlour limbo, depriving families of a dignified resting place for their loved ones. Bills are rising too, fittingly for a place where the living also pay some of the highest prices in the world for shoebox-sized apartments.
殯儀人員只能把逝者的骨灰臨時存放在殯儀館後面，直到它們找到一個永久的安放地。這意味着逝者在殯儀管暫時停放的時間裏，逝者的家人無法爲他們所愛的人找到一個有尊嚴的安息地。費用也在增加，對於一個就連活人都在爲住上鞋盒大小的公寓支付世界上最昂貴居住費用的地方而言，這種情況倒也合情合理。The Chinese territory’s Food, Environment and Hygiene Department is debating more than doubling the cost of burial to HK$6,670 (US$860) in order to “recover the full cost of providing the relevant goods and services”.
中國香港特別行政區食物環境衛生署(Food, Environment and Hygiene Department)正在討論將安葬費用提高逾一倍至6670港元（合860美元），以便“收回提供相關物品和服務的全部成本”。Bills are swelling even for those who choose the more space-efficient niches of the city’s columbariums, giant locker-like repositories in which ashes are kept. There are proposals to more than double the price of keeping an urn in a niche from HK$140 to HK$345. The government has responded by building more public columbariums, two of which added almost 25,000 spaces last June.
即使對於那些選擇香港骨灰龕場更節省空間的壁龕的人，費用也在上漲。骨灰龕場是存放骨灰的、如巨型寄存櫃般的貯存庫。有人建議將骨灰龕位的費用由140港元增加逾一倍至345港元。爲應對這一問題，香港政府正在建造更多的公共骨灰龕場，去年6月有兩家龕場增加了將近2.5萬個龕位。Applications for columbarium niches almost doubled to 23,235 between 2010 and 2014, with the average waiting time increasing from two and a half years to four and a half. While waiting for a permanent resting place, it costs HK$80 a month to keep ashes in temporary storage facilities.
2010年至2014年間，骨灰龕位的申請數量幾乎增加了一倍至23235個，每個申請的平均等待時間由兩年半增加至四年半。在等待永久安放地期間，骨灰停放在臨時貯存設施的費用爲每月80港元。Sage International, the Hong Kong-listed funeral services group that is Ms Ma’s employer, has started to encourage its clients to use an alternative way to commemorate their loved ones — turning their ashes into gemstones.
仁智國際(Sage International)是一家在香港上市的殯葬服務集團，Betsy Ma便是該集團的員工。該集團已開始鼓勵其顧客採用另一種方式紀念他們所愛的人——把其骨灰轉變爲鑽石。Ms Ma said a few hundred customers each year choose this glittering way to commemorate the deceased. She has even used the service herself. “This is my father,” she said, pointing at the stone in her earring.
Betsy Ma稱，每年有數百名顧客選擇用這種“閃閃發光”的方式來紀念逝者。就連她自己也選擇了這種服務。“這是我父親，”她指着自己耳環上的鑽石說。
