Grave interruption: Building around a tomb in China

AP

Workers lay the foundation for a residential complex around a solitary tomb site in Taiyuan, China's Shanxi province, Dec. 6.

AP

Workers lay the foundation for a residential complex around a solitary tomb site in Taiyuan, China, Dec. 6.

Jon Woo / Reuters

An ancestral tomb, 33 feet high and about 30 square feet, on the construction site of a building in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, in China on Dec. 6.

AP

Workers lay the foundation for a residential complex around a solitary tomb site in Taiyuan, China, Dec. 6.

Developers bought a cemetery and paid villagers to relocate the remains of their loved ones. All except one. The grave has not been moved as the family is waiting for an auspicious date to do so and a reason from the developer for choosing this site, according to the owner of the tomb. The developers are now offering to pay nearly $160,000 to have it moved. The building is scheduled to be completed by April 2013, but for now, construction continues around the gravesite. Last week a home in Zhejiang province, that had been sitting in the middle of a newly built highway as the owners held out for more money, was finally demolished.

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No O.S.H.A. in China.

Notice the workers. No hard hats or safety glasses. The dirt mound is Illegally sloped. That thing could break loose and bury the guys working under it. They have no safety standards at all.

  • 13 votes
#1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 1:04 PM EST

The mound is all sand. The first big rain, and it's coming down.

  • 8 votes
#1.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:08 PM EST

I hope they are not expecting a lot of rain! Or that Grave might just move itself.

  • 6 votes
#1.2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:10 PM EST

This is just a stupid article.

  • 10 votes
#1.3 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:13 PM EST

Just what is an "illegal slope" in china?

  • 10 votes
#1.4 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:20 PM EST

I was in Guiyang a few years ago - a building was being demolished near my hotel. Chunks of concrete and rebar were put into baskets and hand carried by people (of both sexes) in baskets. The people looked like sterotypical Chinese peasants. And across the street, young people were clad in western clothing toting cell phones. They would say that these people are being given jobs that Americans would've had one guy in a front end loader move.

  • 10 votes
#1.5 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:21 PM EST

If the family holds out longer they might get more money to move the grave.

  • 6 votes
#1.6 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:23 PM EST

The family sure is lucky that there is no Eminent Domain in China. Over here, the corporation would bulldoze you over under the protection of Eminent Domain.

  • 15 votes
#1.7 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:36 PM EST
Comment author avatarElderAlExpand Comment Comment collapsed by the community

The govt in America is an overly-protective nanny-state with multiple agencies slowing / stopping growth in the USA. Any wonder why the Chinise are out producing us and we owe them trillions of dollars ??

Want economic growth in America and the full, robust employment that follows? Lay-off / fire 90% plus of all of the "govt workers" (whom we PAY to cause trouble). Then watch a balanced budget turn into a Surplus.

All of this the direct opposite approach of the policies PROVEN to fail as pressed "forward" by the Socialist-in-Chief.

  • 31 votes
#1.8 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:38 PM EST

i think they should just build around it and encase it in glass...like an art piece...that would be kinda cool!

  • 22 votes
#1.9 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:43 PM EST

If they hold out much longer, someone may arrange for a few more occupants in the family tomb!

  • 6 votes
#1.10 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:47 PM EST

Elderal - while I agree we need to cutback and streamline areas of our government, personal responsibility seems to be MIA more than ever, and that some OSHA and EPA rules seem to lack common sense, not all rules and regulations are bad. Case in point about hard hats and safety glasses or proper benching during an excavation. Someone getting killed or losing an eye for not taking an extra minute to put on PPE (be provided and cost to do so) or install a safety measure is not worth it.

Fortunately most of us see this and value life more than a couple extra dollars. Or maybe something you can understand in regards to the excavation, how would you like to have your machine in a hole a get buried ruining it plus all the lost time and money since apparently workers mean nothing to you? Probably cut costs and buy the cheapest thing you could so wouldn't matter.

I guess you would have no problem telling a wife and child that their husband/father was killed because you are a cheap SOB who wanted to save a couple bucks. Nah probably don't have the guts to even face them.

And no not all companies would skimp if someone wasn't there making them have safety rules but it would get worse because they wouldn't be able to compete with the ones that do cheat; like what we see with China and need to start enforcing the same rules. Maybe you do care about workers but from your post I certainly wouldn't gather that.

Otherwise it is crazy to see photos like this. I agree that would be an interesting art piece, for lack of better term, if they incorporated it into the building somehow.

It is time

  • 11 votes
#1.11 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:03 PM EST

@Uncle Ben - What do you mean the mound is all sand? It's hard to say for sure, but it looks like clay to me. And it looks stable. You don't think they have geotechnical engineers in China to evaluate this? Of course they do.

  • 9 votes
#1.12 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:07 PM EST

MC Gusto and Uncle Ben, this is not the first time that construction workers in China have done this with a solitary grave. Don't worry about the grave coming down anytime soon, that earth is like a rock.

There is absolutely no OSHO, EPA, MSA or any of the other regulatory agencies in China. It is not uncommon to see construction workers working 7 stories above ground on bamboo supported scaffolding with boards that I wouldn't use to build a campfire. No safety equipment at all.

I have also seen factories that employ 50,000 workers in the Southern part of China.

If they could not locate the family members to get permission to move the grave, they would not move it, they will not desecrate a grave.

  • 4 votes
#1.13 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:17 PM EST

EldarAl is advocating communism. Communist!

  • 2 votes
#1.14 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:30 PM EST

Want economic growth in America and the full, robust employment that follows? Lay-off / fire 90% plus of all of the "govt workers" (whom we PAY to cause trouble). Then watch a balanced budget turn into a Surplus.

All of this the direct opposite approach of the policies PROVEN to fail as pressed "forward" by the Socialist-in-Chief.

Ok Moron now explain how Bill Clinton did it without your spew! LOL Socialism? really you are as clueless as the rest who are dumb enough to parrot that line. Obama is an anti socialist. FYI Clinto as President was the leader of this country who paid down the debt left a 1.5 trillion dollr SURPLUS and under his admin 23 million jobs were created. The Non socialits Bush on the other hand Ran up the debt by 6.5 trillion lost the 1.5 trillion surplus and created 3 million jobs in 8 years.

  • 9 votes
#1.15 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:32 PM EST

So the fact that China as opposed to say Israel has managed to maintain itself as a nation on the land their version god promised for over a couple of thousand yrs is somehow a nation of losers ?

Yet America which is short of 300 yrs is ready to implode from within because we would rather attack each other over the B/S we cherish as politics than to work together . America is now more about vanity and geed than civility .

  • 11 votes
#1.16 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:33 PM EST

No unions in China. Nobody to hold the general contractors to any kind of safety standards until AFTER the thing come tumbling down and kills some folks.

  • 6 votes
#1.17 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:38 PM EST

Isn't this the plot of just about every horror film for the past 30 years?

    #1.18 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:44 PM EST

    They are offering $160,000 to the relatives to allow them to move the grave? Yet the people in the nail house only got $41,000? Seems kind of stupid that moving a dead body is worth more in compinsation than a living family

    • 2 votes
    #1.19 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:57 PM EST

    @ breadex

    Ok Moron now explain how Bill Clinton did it without your spew!

    Republican held Congress. Got any other softball questions that you can't figure out on your own? I can only imagine the wealth of knowledge I could bestow upon you.

    Before you ask, look at what party controlled congress when the dept was run up. It's funny that you want to talk about Bush's spending but conveniently leave out how Obama is blowing Bush's spending and debt accumulation out of the water.

    • 7 votes
    #1.20 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:23 PM EST

    Tiredoldman-886590 you might need to study ancestor worship in China. They hold remains of deceased relatives in high regard ... most of the time. Except for toyals. But that is another story. Anyway, the family may fear revenge from departed ancestors for moving the remains. There might be more to this than just the family holding out for more money.

    • 4 votes
    #1.21 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:55 PM EST

    Nancy, maybe you should check your facts - the problems that the current administration are dealing with were mostly the left over trash that the prior administration put into effect. Of course, taking your view - we could have pulled everyone out of IRAQ and Afghanistan and perhaps taken Haliburton to court over their ridiculous fees to support this war - OMG - that would mean Dick Chaney would be in the spotlight again and then as an after thought - we could have collapsed the US economics by not dealing with the criminals who started and later benefited from the real estate bubble collapse.

    People who talk so much about the current deficite have no clue about how the government of their favored (criminal) actually put in motion so many things that it takes years to pull back and fix. Bush Jr should be (actually is) listed as the most corrupt president this country has ever had. IMHO - he should be behind bars where he belongs - but that would just cost us even more in the end.

    You and the rest of the thoughtful who are so focused on the Price of Today - probably cannot even balance your checkbooks or have a decent savings account. You cannot see the impact of the decisions of yesterday and the cost of tomorrow. Your only interest is in the PRESENT(s) you can leach off the rest of us.

    As for the Government employees - yea, some of them are lame and useless - but there are a larger number who are as mad about the government spending as you are - and without us in our proper places, you think you have something to complain about now? Think again....

    • 4 votes
    #1.22 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:05 PM EST

    We have something like this in a parking lot of a movie theatre in North Jersey.

    • 1 vote
    #1.23 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:52 PM EST

    There's a grave in a parking lot of a movie theatre in North Jersey. It's of a woman who was waiting for her fiance' to come home from sea many,many years ago. He was lost at sea. When she died she was buried on the property. I don't remember the rest of the story though why the grave has to stay there. I think it's near the Raritan River.

      #1.24 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:57 PM EST

      Nancy, maybe you should check your facts - the problems that the current administration are dealing with were mostly the left over trash that the prior administration put into effect.

      Well the current Admin is Obama and the prior one was ....what for it......Obama. When will the blame game stop, Bath House Barry has done nothing to fix our economy. Maybe when you wake up but then it will be to late you will realize that both of these parties sail the same ship and all they care about is themselves and keeping the right and left busy fighting. A house(nation) divided against itself cannot stand.

      • 2 votes
      #1.25 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:02 PM EST

      WOW this went from a grave in china that is a pretty kool kinda story.To you guys bashing rep. and dem. and fed up is gonna swear allegiance to his god obama WOW stop whining about what is happening it has happened stop blaming bush it has been 4 years and hold the man in charge accountable and just shut up can't we all just get along

      • 1 vote
      #1.26 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:03 PM EST

      No Sh!t charmerfarmer. Went right to political bashing in a matter of minutes. Can't anyone give it a break? Agree to disagree or something and move on.

      BTW. I see a number of hard hats being worn and I see a number of people not wearing them also. As for eye protection a couple confirmed no safety glasses but the rest are too far away to tell. Funny how the rod busters don't have hard hats. Typical rod buster,going against the grain, generally a loud a$$hole like my brother in Local 86 Seattle.

      As for the "mound of sand" don't get your panties in a bunch. The surrounding soil is caliche. It isn't going anywhere until they decide to move it. However, I did phone the Genero Contwatoe and they will be puting up a caution tape barrier surrounding the mound so you pansies will sweep betto.

      • 2 votes
      #1.27 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 10:26 PM EST

      When we here about the building mysteriously collasping, we'll know why...to be continued

        #1.28 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 11:23 PM EST

        Nice photo shop, Note the rebar goes under the mound?

          #1.29 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 11:40 PM EST

          ILLEGALLY SLOPED????? Laws in your country country don't apply in China. BY the way, PPE is enforced according to the appropriate hazards (by law). If the hazard assessment completed by the project superintendent deems an area safe and without need of specific PPE, then it is not required (by law). In these pics, only rebar twisters are not wearing any hard hats, this is because their heads are always turned down and their hats fall off.

          • 3 votes
          #1.30 - Fri Dec 7, 2012 12:29 AM EST

          "You only moved the headstones!!!" - <insert creepy music and Poltergeist scenes here> - LOL

            #1.31 - Fri Dec 7, 2012 9:07 AM EST

            Regarding grave+movie theater in New Jersey

            http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/13523

              #1.32 - Fri Dec 7, 2012 1:18 PM EST
              Reply

              All the makings of a horror movie. "There's a grave in my basement".

              • 4 votes
              Reply#2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 2:06 PM EST

              Apartment of Blood

              Apartment of Blood II: the Revenge

              Apartment of Blood III: the Return of Blood

              Apartment of Blood IV: Screaming Cheerleader Massacre

              Apartment of Blood V: Snoopy Gets a Valentine

              Apartment of Blood VI: Chinese Slaughter Leprechauns in Space Apartments

              Apartment of Blood: Rebooted

              • 7 votes
              #2.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:25 PM EST

              Wasn't there a poltergeist movie about this place?

              • 3 votes
              #2.2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:35 PM EST
              Reply

              This is how the legend of the Amnityville highrise starts

              • 6 votes
              Reply#3 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 2:17 PM EST

              What do you expect in a nation where greed is not only good but god.

              • 5 votes
              Reply#4 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 2:24 PM EST

              Any religion anywhere.

              • 2 votes
              #4.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 2:51 PM EST

              any idiots anywhere

                #4.2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 3:48 PM EST

                Thats the republican party your talking about.

                • 9 votes
                #4.3 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:04 PM EST

                Like those todays GOP coddle?!

                • 3 votes
                #4.4 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:04 PM EST

                I hear Romney wants to buy the building so he has a place to stay after he ships all the jobs overseas

                • 5 votes
                #4.5 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:26 PM EST

                Bringing US politics into this is retarded!

                • 3 votes
                #4.6 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:27 PM EST

                NO it's true I saw it on the internet

                • 3 votes
                #4.7 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:30 PM EST

                Cheney and Bush sent Americans to their death to make hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves. you need to look in before you point out.

                • 4 votes
                #4.8 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:40 PM EST

                they are the same ones that want to keep the word "god" on money, cuz money IS their god.

                • 1 vote
                #4.9 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:08 PM EST
                Reply

                "...as the owners held out for more money..."

                Sounds real familiar. sure this didn't happen HERE in the good ol' U.S.A.?!?

                  Reply#5 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 3:07 PM EST

                  Actually, here in the USA, the government can seize your land if they want to build someothing on it or use it in some way and pay you bottom dollar for it.

                  • 9 votes
                  #5.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:12 PM EST

                  In your country they seize the land and the people are never heard from again

                  • 2 votes
                  #5.2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:27 PM EST

                  No the u.s. government can not just seize your land. It takes many months, sometimes even years to get a piece of property by using imminent domain. Such as road or rail or pipeline construction. And top market value is paid for the land. Nothing bottom about it. I just made the keystone XL pipeline company pay me $750,000 for there pipeline crossing seventy acres of my north Texas land. And made them sign a 199 year lease that pays me $2,500.00 a month for it just being there underground. And i still get the use of the land for cattle grazing. I love the USA!

                  • 3 votes
                  #5.3 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:42 PM EST

                  Untill the pipe leaks and poisons all the ground water.

                  • 4 votes
                  #5.4 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:04 PM EST

                  Paton the ground water in Texas is already nasty stuff. Smells like spoiled eggs.

                  • 1 vote
                  #5.5 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:28 PM EST

                  i have dealt with eminent domain. 2 years of fighting before they gave up. they wanted next to nothing for the land. the gov wanted to build a road through farmland when all they had to do was have the utility company move their power lines over twenty yards to widen the existing road! they didnt give up so much as the Texas dept of transportation ran out of money for new projects. bunch of jerks, and on this issue and this issue only, i will say good job china. 2 stories of respect for land rights in a short time.

                  • 2 votes
                  #5.6 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:19 PM EST

                  Andy , your a hero in my book , if 1/10 of what they say about most of the product that passes thru it is for overseas consumption then let them pass your costs off on China or whoever .

                  Just wish you could have demanded that work done on your property was done by American workers not foreigners as has been reported

                    #5.7 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:29 PM EST
                    Reply

                    Capitalism at its finest. Literally over my dead body.

                    • 3 votes
                    Reply#6 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 3:13 PM EST

                    Oh those ultra sensitive Chinese %#$&!

                      Reply#7 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:00 PM EST

                      Complete lack of respect... for life... before or after.

                      • 2 votes
                      Reply#8 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:06 PM EST

                      there dumb the ghost will kill the owner who bought that place were people lie dead just tells you how the U.S is dumb let the peace be you stupid retards that should be a place where they never should build there

                        Reply#9 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:07 PM EST

                        I sure hope you are still in elementary school... Because you still have a lot to learn. I have no clue what you are even talking about!!!

                        • 5 votes
                        #9.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:46 PM EST

                        Josiah appears to be a "special needs" student, poor little 'tard.

                          #9.2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:16 PM EST

                          If you read the following comments to your post, I'm sorry that some people can't tell from your picture that you are, obviously, young. I know that many kids, including teens and young adults, write without punctuation and proper grammar during the age of texting. However, don't be surprised if some people attack you over your style of writing.

                          When it comes to building over graves, it happens more often than most people realize. Graves are moved around to build roads and put in utilities all the time. If there are ghosts, then they have a lot of haunting to do.

                          • 1 vote
                          #9.3 - Fri Dec 7, 2012 12:33 AM EST
                          Reply

                          By the looks of things the developer is anticipating that things will work out, just gotta come up with the right figure. Wonder what the tomb occupant would think? gonna come to a point... lots of parking lots over cemetaries in the U.S.

                          • 2 votes
                          Reply#10 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:10 PM EST

                          At least the Chinese Gov. still respect the owner of the land, in US they would applied Eminent domain law.

                          • 4 votes
                          Reply#11 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:11 PM EST

                          True.

                          The concept of "private property" is long over here. Just stop paying property taxes and see who really owns your land or home.

                          • 3 votes
                          #11.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:26 PM EST

                          Yeah, the school system

                            #11.2 - Fri Dec 7, 2012 6:34 AM EST
                            Reply

                            What is it with the Chinese? First they build the road around that house, which they just tore down, now building around the tomb.

                            • 1 vote
                            Reply#12 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:12 PM EST

                            They are a nation that is developing rather fast to catch up with the Western nations who spent centuries gradually developing.

                            • 1 vote
                            #12.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:05 PM EST

                            That's because in some ways China gives the people more rights than we give here in our so called alleged "land of the free". We're free to do as the government says under the direction of wealthy people who bribe them and contribute big $$$$$ to get their puppets elected .

                            here the government uses emminent domain to take peoples property so a shopping center or condo's can be built. In China they obviously don't do that crap

                            China certainly has a lot of problems but if you get caught taking bribes or making a defective product that harms people, you are arrested and tried within 60 days . the appeal takes 30 days and the execution follows

                            • 4 votes
                            #12.2 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 6:22 PM EST
                            Reply

                            They will build an apartment around this guy and charge his family rent.

                              Reply#13 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:15 PM EST

                              Umm.. Josiah, this is in China.

                              • 1 vote
                              Reply#14 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:19 PM EST

                              This is nothing new , We built a casion and a parking garage around an Indian Burial Ground in Tampa, Florida. The burial ground is inside the casino.

                              • 4 votes
                              Reply#15 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:21 PM EST

                              @!$%# i would have just moved grave to a nice cemetary.whats so hard about common sense?

                                Reply#16 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:21 PM EST

                                That's the funniest damn thing I've ever seen! Good for the tomb owners! Hold out for more!

                                  Reply#17 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:22 PM EST

                                  Better pray no heavy rain or the tomb would just move itself; problem solved.

                                    #17.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:41 PM EST
                                    Reply

                                    Josiah Heckman wrote: "there dumb the ghost will kill the owner who bought that place were people lie dead just tells you how the U.S is dumb let the peace be you stupid retards that should be a place where they never should build there"

                                    What??! Looks like you need to spend more time learning how to read and right, lil' buddy, rather than trolling through the Internet and writing inane, illiterate comments. Get back to class!

                                    • 3 votes
                                    Reply#18 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:22 PM EST

                                    That should be "write". Ooops! guess i be elliterate two!!! yuk yuk yuk.

                                    • 2 votes
                                    #18.1 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:23 PM EST
                                    Reply

                                    20 years ago the family would have just been executed.

                                    • 3 votes
                                    Reply#19 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:24 PM EST

                                    When I see this sort of thing happening in China I'm amazed. Aren't these the same people who, a few years ago, were chasing each other around waving the Chairman Moe's little red book. I think that the premise was that, every body had better be equal, or, else.

                                    • 3 votes
                                    Reply#20 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:27 PM EST

                                    You don't need safety when there's a billion others to take their place!

                                    • 1 vote
                                    Reply#21 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:34 PM EST

                                    Definitely nothing new here... Hawaiian's bones are moved on a daily basis so there can be shopping malls and resorts for all tourists. American's have no respect for the dead either, unless their christian or catholic or something like that.

                                    • 1 vote
                                    Reply#22 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:34 PM EST
                                    Reply

                                    Poltergeist 4?

                                      Reply#23 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:48 PM EST

                                      It seems building permit and inspection is not needed.

                                      Will see when earthquake hits the area.

                                        Reply#24 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:52 PM EST

                                        You moved the headstones but you left the bodies, didn't you?!!

                                        • 4 votes
                                        Reply#25 - Thu Dec 6, 2012 5:55 PM EST
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