An exposé published last week by Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市報) telling the shocking story of exorbitant morgue fees in Jinan, the capital of coastal Shandong province, quickly disappeared from China’s internet last week — suggesting authorities were uncomfortable with its implications of bureaucratic negligence. The report detailed how the body of murder victim Liu Yun (刘芸) had remained in storage at a local funeral home for more than five years, accumulating 380,000 yuan (52,800 dollars) in storage fees that the victim’s impoverished rural family could not afford to pay.
The bureaucratic deadlock occurred when police refused to issue a death certificate, claiming the court verdict was sufficient, while the funeral home insisted it needed this specific document to release the body. Despite regulations clearly assigning responsibility to police for issuing death certificates in criminal cases, the impasse continued until media exposure prompted authorities to waive all fees. This is apparently not an isolated case.
As the article vanished online, it left a string of “404” error messages in its wake. In an oddly colorful take on censorship, Tencent turned the page block into a creative error page encouraging users to “light a dream for children” (为孩子们点亮一个梦想) by supporting rural schools. The message poignantly notes: “The page you’re looking for has gone astray seeking dreams, but you can still make a difference together with Tencent’s volunteers.”
