In many big cities across China, an increasing number of grief-stricken pet owners are eager to find a way to convey their continuing sorrow at the loss of their beloved pets.

"Each year during the festival, around 100 people visit the their pets' burial sites and hold memorials at our pet cemetery," said Liao Yumin, manager of the Beijing Boai Banlu Pet Crematorium.

As part of the Beijing Association of Small Animal Protection, Liao's crematorium has provided cremation services for departed pets and deposited urns for the past two years.

The cemetery now takes care of more than 40 urns, and provides cremation services for 30 cats or dogs on average each month.

The association has also established a 1.3-hectare pet cemetery in the Changping District, where bereaved pet owners bury their pets' ashes.

Liao said about half of the cemetery is already used, with 170-plus pet souls receiving visits just like human beings each year.

"We regarded our dog as one of the family members. There was no excuse for a simple landfill when a family member died," said Zheng Rui, a bank employee whose pet dog died of cancer four years ago.

Having Niuniu for a decade, Zheng held great affection for the canine. He bought a four-square-meter plot, replete with a headstone at the foot of a birch tree.

Zheng pays visits to the tomb almost twice a year or whenever he thinks of Niuniu - "not necessarily during the Qingming Festival," he said.

The ceremony is simple: Clean the tomb, lay down a bunch of flowers, water the tree with a wind-bell tied to it. The grief is the same as it is visiting a human relative, he said.

As the second pet owner to erect a memorial to a beloved animal companion at the cemetery, Zheng said he has observed more than 30 new tombs there in memory of departed cats, dogs or rabbits in recent years.

Statistics show the annual death rate of the city's pets is 8 percent. That means about 160,000 cats and dogs die in the city each year.

Simply burying the bodies used to be the most popular way pet owners adopted to say goodbye to their departed companions.

"Dead animal's bodies without burial can do harm to both human healthy and the environment," said Liao.

However, gone are the days when nothing was available for departed pets, thanks to a sudden boom of the pet after-death industry in some big cities.

Cremation is now available in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with an average of 500 yuan (US$60) charged for a body.

Lavish headstones are available at most cemeteries, and trees such as pines, cypresses and birches can be purchased to be planted above entombed ashes.

The cost for each tree varies between 80 yuan (US$9.7) and 500 yuan (US$60).

In the meantime, the Internet has brought forth virtual pet cemeteries, where mournful pet owners can upload deceased animals' photos, light up virtual candles, present "flowers," recall the past with poems or anecdotes, or invite friends to pay "visits."

At Chinapet.com, a popular website for pet lovers, 580 departed animals, including cats, dogs and rabbits, dwell in the "Pet Heaven," a special channel in memory of passed pets.

Another burgeoning part of the industry is changing the deceased animal into a stuffed animal. Prices run no less than 2,000 yuan (US$242) each.

"We make five to six specimens a month now," Zhang Yanchuan, who set up his own studio a year ago in Beijing, was quoted by China Youth Daily last month as saying.

But a number of interviewees reject the idea of such a practice for late animals, saying it is "awful."

"Why not simply place a photo of the pet in the room?" said Shi Hui, a young Beijing resident who has had a small dog as a pet for four months.

She also abhors Zheng's way of buying a plot and erecting a memorial, entitling it as "formalism" at the expense of realism.

"I would rather spend the money aiding roaming animals," Shi said.

"I would choose cremation and bury her ashes under a tree in the public garden in front of my apartment if my little Dudu died one day."

The woman said that without such a place for her animal, she would spread the ashes in the wilderness, which is exactly what she would like for herself after death.

While pet lovers extend their full dedication to their deceased companions, criticism and scorn are spreading from those who are disgusted at piles of dog excrement along roadsides and annoyed at endless barking in their neighborhoods.

"It is real exaggeration to treat animals in the same way as human beings and more ridiculous to build a tomb," said Zhu Jun, a Shanghai-based automobile company employee. For him, the Tomb Sweeping Festival is and should only be a festival for human beings.

(China Daily April 5, 2005)