I remembered it was a news writing class last fall when I was assigned to write an obituary the first time, I thought, “How interesting! Obituary is a news category in the States and they even have an actual section of obituaries in print media!” It just never happened in China unless the deceased one is a well-known.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t any obituary of an ordinary person in China. It just never goes to media outlets. A common way for almost all the families and friends to memorialize someone is to have a physical memorial meeting at a funeral home, where all the related ones could gather to mourn the person’s death, with flowers, wreath or donations in some cases. As part of that meeting, a family member or friend may read to the public a person’s obituary, which tells the life story of him/her.

But that’s all. If you’re not related to the deceased or there is no close connection, it’s highly likely that you may never notice this person has passed away or happened to know it years after.

For younger generation, I remembered that it was popular to memorialize the ones who passed away at a very young age by creating a Webpage when I was in college. There were more such specialized Websites than today because it seems people would be more willing to do this on social networking sites nowadays, after renren.com, a Chinese Facebook, or such types of Websites emerged. However, nothing as an obituary comes along on the site. It functions more like a guestbook, where you can post comments, video or pictures of the loved one.

But when it comes to a celebrity, it’s huge for Chinese audience. Here’s an example of a very famous Chinese Anchor who passed away recently.

To help you know this person, it might be better to read this death notice first. (I didn’t find the obituary of him in English.)

Not surprisingly, the state-run Xinhua News Agency did a news package for his death, including his obituary, how people memorialized him, pictures and videos…Basically, everything related.

Personally, people also write blogs about their feelings of this anchor’s death. Some of them even function as an obituary based on their knowledge of this anchor’s life, like this.

So this is a general picture of obituaries in China, where people don’t feel it’s necessary to put obituaries on media since there isn’t a relationship between the deceased and the rest of the world. But referring to the well-known, even though there isn’t a direct relationship, it’s kind of an indirect one that people share a common knowledge of and can chat about.