Residents of Jia'an Apartment in Xuhui District of Shanghai are demanding a nearby restaurant stop offering funeral dinners, saying the music and crying in front of their residential building create a terrible mood.

The Jia Yuan Restaurant is located across Wanping Road S. from the residential complex.

The deputy director of the building's home owners committee said that the restaurant began to offer funeral dinners last year.

"It receives several batches of customers for funeral service dinners everyday," Yang Wenyin, the deputy director said.

Following Chinese customs, relatives of the dead dress in white and burn paper houses and money before the dinner, which also involves lots of crying and loud music.

"Facing such scene everyday when entering and leaving the complex, our residents said they feel very uncomfortable," Yang pointed out. "And in order not to meet such scene when a family wants to hold a wedding ceremony, we officials should also negotiate with the restaurant to stagger the time to make sure two families won't meet."

Managers of the restaurant were unwilling to discuss the situation yesterday.

An employee of the restaurant did, however, pointing out the eatery has a business license and should be allowed to offer any kind of service it wants.

Sociologist Gu Xiaoming pointed out that funerals are considered unlucky in China.

"The custom caused people to feel uncomfortable subconsciously when facing anything related to a funeral."

A funeral service company said the windows of its downtown office were smashed on several occasions last fall, an act it blamed on the building's other tenants who didn't want to share an office building with a funeral service company.

(Shanghai Daily March 8, 2006)