Death Narrative in 19th Century China: How Did Newspapers Frame Death and Dying?

Background: Different understandings of death lead to varied coping strategies, expectations, and end-of-life decisions among particular groups of people while approaching death. Values and perceptions do not randomly appear. Instead, they have historical roots. Regarding the Chinese’s discourse on death, the 19th century is a critical period as it features the initial fusion between Chinese and Western cultures in larger society. Newspapers are the primary source of data in this research on public perceptions of death. This study explored the death narrative in the late Qin dynasty as expressed in Chinese newspapers in the 19th century, and how those perceptions have been passed down and evolved over time.

Methods: This research analyzed relevant textual content identified in 114,787 articles published in the 19th century in the Late Qing Dynasty Periodical Full Text Database (1833-1911). Database searches followed professional literature research methods by creating a series of retrieval words containing synonyms of the Chinese character for “death”, "dying", and "terminal illness".All news items meeting the search criteria were retrieved, and after eliminating repeated items and those for which full texts were not available, a final sample of 646 items were identified and downloaded. Textual analysis was used to to analyze those 646 pieces of news containing death-related topics.

Results: this study revealed the discourse regarding death and dying during this period can be understood at three levels: (a) euphemism of death: because death is a cultural taboo, Chinese people used euphemisms to refer to death and dying, and the language of death was related to power and social hierarchy; (b) definition of “good death” by the society: including preferences for location, cause, and experiences of death and dying; and (c) Western influence on the death narrative: Western missionaries influenced the death narrative by opening some sensitive topics for discussion, like the soul–body relationship, and incorporating Catholic and Chinese traditions to attract more believers.

Implications: This paper argues that the current Chinese people’s perception of death is inherited and evolved from those historical roots, which has practical implications for the systematic development of hospice care in China. Suggestions include 1) changing the current language in the hospice system given that Chinese hospice field, including macro policies and the name of front-line hospice departments, adopts a direct translation of “hospice” (临终关怀) to refer to this concept; 2) emphasizing the importance of confidentiality in future home-based hospice programs: agencies should educate their social workers and develop a special system of protecting the confidentiality of patients with the understanding that many older adults and their family members don’t want the community and neighborhood to know their decisions; and 3) and building a hospice system based on public perceptions of so-called “good death” while advocating for individualized definitions of this concept.