‘Take my name off’: Chinese man finally complies with court order to remove name of ex-girlfriend from grandparents’ tombstone two years after split
2023.04.30 18:00A Chinese man who was ordered by a court to remove the name of his ex-girlfriend from a family tombstone has finally complied, two years after he was told to do so.The man, surnamed Wan, from southwestern China’s Chongqing municipality, was worried that if he tampered with the memorial – by removing the name of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Xu – it might upset the family’s feng shui.Following the death of Wan’s maternal grandparents his family erected a tombstone on their grave and carved the names of the couple’s children, grandchildren and spouses on it as a gesture of filial piety.Despite the fact that it was rare to carve the names of unmarried partners, Wan put the name of Xu, whom he had been dating and living with since 2007, on the tombstone.In 2021, after the pair broke up, a court ruled in favour of the girlfriend that her name should be removed from the tombstone because it might hurt “her feelings and future life”.However, Wan only covered up Xu’s name with pl
A Chinese man who was ordered by a court to remove the name of his ex-girlfriend from a family tombstone has finally complied, two years after he was told to do so.
The man, surnamed Wan, from southwestern China’s Chongqing municipality, was worried that if he tampered with the memorial – by removing the name of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Xu – it might upset the family’s feng shui.
Following the death of Wan’s maternal grandparents his family erected a tombstone on their grave and carved the names of the couple’s children, grandchildren and spouses on it as a gesture of filial piety.
Despite the fact that it was rare to carve the names of unmarried partners, Wan put the name of Xu, whom he had been dating and living with since 2007, on the tombstone.
In 2021, after the pair broke up, a court ruled in favour of the girlfriend that her name should be removed from the tombstone because it might hurt “her feelings and future life”.
However, Wan only covered up Xu’s name with plant ash, which could be easily washed away by wind and rain.
Wan’s failure to comply with the court order led to him being blacklisted as a “dishonest judgment debtor” and the court prohibiting him from engaging in “high-level consumption” activities.
The prohibition means that Wan cannot travel by air or high-speed rail, stay at star-rated hotels, buy real estate or build houses until Xu’s name is removed from the family gravestone.
After police visited Wan multiple times to check if he had complied with the order, he finally chipped Xu’s name off with a chisel after this year’s tomb-sweeping day in April, the Bishan District People’s Court in Chongqing reported on April 23.
People on social media have been intrigued by the strangeness of the case.
“I have heard of people tattooing unmarried partners’ names on their body, but I have never heard of doing so on a tombstone,” one person said.
Another person pointed out that while the tradition of carving offspring’s names on tombstones varies in different parts of China, in some places it is even uncommon to engrave the names of married partners to “avoid the trouble of future divorces”.
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