"SHANGHAI — After decades of serenity here, Woo Mu-chuan was forced to move to the countryside in 1988 to make way for a slew of luxury projects that now include the Cambridge Forest Country Club.
"But in 2000, when the country town of Mudu began to blossom, Mr. Woo moved again, this time to San Francisco.
"There, he was reunited with his wife, who had been in Taipei, Taiwan, in a tranquil suburb, close to most of their children and grandchildren.
"It was a transcendent family moment, even though the Woos were not alive to see any of this happen.
"In what might be the ultimate act of relocation, thousands of deceased Chinese like Mr. Woo have been exhumed by their descendants and reburied in places like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, often places they had never visited in life.
"The practice reverses a tradition that dates to the gold rush, when Chinese-Americans would dig up the laborers who had perished in California and ship them back to their ancestral villages.
"From the American side of the Pacific, these reburials might be viewed as dutiful exercises for families that are more rooted in the United States than in China. But here, they hint at an unsentimental calculation that the past can stand in the way of the future.
"It seems that just about every old neighborhood in bustling areas like Guangzhou and Shanghai is fair game for a modern makeover. So it is only natural that cemeteries are routinely moved and bodies occasionally lost to create farms, offices and housing tracts.
"Small wonder, then, that people like Mr. Woo's son in San Francisco, Frank Woo, and Evelyn Lee, from Los Angeles, feel the pull to honor their loved ones."
Since we have so many Chinese posters here, I thought they might find that interesting. There is more, of course, at the website.
