In part, the move reflects the assimilation of many Chinese immigrants who now look beyond their traditional neighborhoods in a way they did not in the past. But it also reflects the continuing pull of ritual and tradition, and the way many Asians, the Chinese in particular, are holding on to the beliefs of their homelands even as they move closer to the American mainstream. They are increasingly snatching up burial spots blessed with good feng shui, an intangible quality divined through an ancient Chinese practice of reading signs from nature. They are also patronizing cemeteries that accommodate Chinese preferences for elaborate headstones and rituals for the dead. For example, many suburban cemeteries allow them to burn fake money, a popular ritual that is said to enrich the deceased in the afterlife.
Some urban cemeteries ban the ritual as a fire hazard.
While other ethnic and religious groups have discovered suburban cemeteries in the past decade notably, Koreans and Muslims the Chinese tend to buy in the largest numbers and take unusual care in selecting their gravesites, funeral and cemetery workers say. Project Open Door's members have acquired about 3,600 burial spaces in Mount Pleasant Cemetery since 1987. There is a waiting list of 500 for future plots because land has become so scarce. One ornate memorial, belonging to a Chinatown family, features a pair of 3,500-pound granite lions from China and its own sprinkler system. Chinese and Korean churches and community groups now buy half of the 2,000 plots sold every year at Washington Memorial Park in Mount Sinai, on Long Island, which was founded as a Jewish cemetery in 1928 and later became nonsectarian.