High grade cemeteries

The price of a good resting place can be equal to the value of a house, and several people have saved for their whole life but are still unable to afford a grave.

Several high-grade private cemeteries have come into operation in provinces adjacent to Ho Chi Minh City since 2006, where investors have designed the cemeteries like parks and tourist destinations.

The total cost for a 10 square meter single tomb at An Vien Vinh Hang Cemetery is VND240 million (US$11,530), equivalent to value of a house in Vinh Cuu District in the southern province of Dong Nai, where the cemetery is located.

An Vien Vinh Hang comprises a family area, where a burial plot of five graves costs nearly VND500 million ($24,000), or VND1.1 billion for eight graves. The price includes long-term maintenance.

A high-grade tomb at An Vien Vinh Hang Cemetary. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The price is no lower in Binh Duong Cemetery Park in Ben Cat District of Binh Duong Province, where burial land costs a minimum of VND20 million ($960) a grave and a maximum of VND200 million.

This cemetery also comprises a burial area for only celebrities and senior leaders of Binh Duong Province. Normal people cannot buy a grave there even if they have a lot of money. 

Nguyen Hien Triet, an investor of the Binh Duong Cemetery, said the graveyard, in combination with the park, is a good way to lure customers. 40 percent of the park area is used for roads, trees, lakes and spiritual works.

They have four architects, whose main duty is to give customers advice on how to design tombs and which construction materials they should use.

The head of the cemetery’s management board is an expert in arts, feng shui and burial culture of different regions and religions.

Son Trang Tien Canh Cemetery in Tay Ninh Province is also selling graves at exorbitant rates. The highest price is VND350 million ($16,810) a burial plot for a double tomb.

The director of another private cemetery said that the more expensive the burial land, the better-selling it is. Customers are usually rich families who buy spacious land plots to build and decorate charnel-houses on their own initiative.

They usually choose a burial place which is appropriate for their social positions. Some choose a plot with the main path of the cemetery in front, for a roomy and bright path of glory.

Some others invite a feng shui master to help choose a burial place, which is suitable for the age of the dead person, or with a good layer of earth, so that the living can do a good trade. Once they find a place like that, customers are usually willing to pay any cost.

Tourist cemeteries

A cemetery combined with a tourist destination is the aim of the Malaysian investor of Son Trang Tien Canh Cemetery in Hoa Thanh District, Tay Ninh Province.

The burial area is skillfully built so that visitors do not feel heavy. Charnel-houses are decorated with granite, and inside them is stone furniture so that visitors can rest and have some tea. Tombs are grandly placed in a corner of the charnel-houses.

In the open-air burial area, tombs are hidden in green grass hills near a tarmac road.
Thao, a worker there, said that initially she felt scared to work in the cemetery, but then changed her mind after visiting it. She now works from 6am-5pm every day and even takes a nap there.

An Vien Vinh Hang is located on the small hills in Vinh Cuu District. Graves are built on hundreds of stairs running from the foot to the top of the hills, like terraced fields.

The cemetery’s investors plan to build it as an urban area comprising several sections. Each section will include tombs made in the same style. They will also build a restaurant and hotel to receive tomb visitors.

Cemetery-dependent services

Upon seeing strangers, dozens of women carrying jackfruits, eggs and bananas immediately surround them to sell goods while offering to guide them to tombs in Yen Ky Cemetery in Hanoi.

Several such services have sprouted in Yen Ky Cemetery, one of the country’s largest, and have become the main business of residents in Phu Son Commune of Ba Vi District in Hanoi.

The 37 hectare Yen Ky Cemetery was opened in the hamlet in 1956, and is 60 kilometers from the center of Hanoi. The cemetery now contains up to 100,000 tombs.

Despite heavy rain, many local peopel still gather at the cemetary to provide neccesary services during grave-visiting festival. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Local residents said that the cemetery is most crowded during the grave-visiting festival, which falls on the first three months and last three months in a year.

People in the hamlet offer themselves as guides because several tomb visitors have been unable to remember the paths in the large cemetery, a woman said. They usually pay VND10,000 per visit, she added.

If the tomb visitors travel by car, they have to park in front of the entrance gate of the cemetery and walk over a long distance. Local people thus offer to introduce motorbike taxi drivers for a tip.

Women in the hamlet even bring sickles, knifes, damp duster clothes and old bags to clear weeds and clean tombstones.

“Customers will decide how much they pay us. The usual price is VND20,000 to clear weeds and clean the tombs and VND10,000 to guide them to their relatives’ tombs,” another woman said about the prices of services in the cemetery.

Local residents also display small tables at rest stops in the cemetery to sell goods like drinking water, incense, joss papers and eggs.

Sinh, a seller there, said that the small basket of goods is her and her two children’s means of subsistence, besides a few rice fields.

She said that residents in her hamlet done business in the Yen Ky Cemetery since it was established.

Most of the tombs in this cemetery were built by people in the Yen Ky Hamlet, which comprises more than 200 households. Sinh said that she does not remember how many tombs her family has built or taken care of there.

Another resident said that the economic woes in recent years have reduced income and employment of several people. However, Yen Ky residents don’t worry about unemployment.

People come to visit tombs and disinter relatives for reburial every day. The number of visitors skyrockets during holidays, weekends and grave-visiting festivals, when cars park in long lines in front of the cemetery. People from other places also flock to Yen Ky to do business, he said.