Business Is Lively in Taiwan Cemetery Market : Beliefs: Buyers want ‘dragon dens,’ places on hills or near water where spirits gather. They believe the plots bring great wealth to the dead’s survivors.

Recession is on the way, but the burial business is booming in Taiwan, helped by the belief that burying relatives in the right place will bring riches.

In the last year, more than a dozen huge cemetery projects have been started on suburban hills with ocean views--sites generally considered divine.

Such burial grounds are all the more spectacular on a crowded island where most of the 20 million people are crammed into apartment buildings in polluted cities.

“At difficult economic times, people are even more concerned about where to build their ancestral tombs, which can either bring wealth or bode disaster,” said Chang Chao-ming, an expert in feng shui , the Chinese art of geomancy, a form of divination that purports to find magical sites.

Some geomancers seek out “dragon dens,” auspicious places on hills or near water that are ideally suited to high-priced tombs.

Chang said those buried in dragon dens, where spirits from the universe are said to gather, can bring good fortune to their children.

A newspaper advertisement for one cemetery says: “An auspicious site for an ancestral tomb is worth more than billions of dollars of inherited wealth.” The multibillion-dollar projects reflect the island’s prosperity and the continued superstition of its people. One of the cemeteries has a meticulously kept park with 1,000 Buddha statues to help a departed soul achieve rest.

Taiwanese also view luxurious tombs as status symbols. A mausoleum with marble pavilions and gardens can cost more than $750,000.

Selling burial sites is different here than in most other places.

“You don’t walk into one’s home and ask him to buy a tomb,” said Tsai Ming-hung, a cemetery manager. “You offer him a chance to make profits or save money.”

People are encouraged to buy sites well ahead of expected deaths in the family, or for resale to others for a profit. The idea is that prices will rise with the diminishing usable land on one of the world’s most densely populated islands.

The cemeteries also include huge pagodas for storing the ashes of cremated relatives. One urn space costs nearly $2,000 and many customers buy dozens, in the expectation that prices will double or triple in a few years.

Tsai said most of the 300,000 urn spaces at his Giant Buddha Cemetery have been sold, even though the burial park will not be completed for five years.

Cemeteries designed as parks attract many elderly customers, who fear that their busy offspring will not visit them in drearier surroundings.

“An old woman gladly booked a tomb site for herself, believing her children and grandchildren would like to go on a picnic at the waterfalls there,” Tsai said.

Chang, the geomancer, recently took a group to the ancestral tomb of President Lee Teng-hui, a farmer’s son and scholar who took office in 1988.

He said the tomb was atop a dragon den and pointed at the surrounding hills and a knife-shaped valley. The knife symbolizes power, Chang told the visitors.

Critics call geomancy a superstition, noting that some sites have not produced the expected fortunes, but Chang said: “ Feng shui is a science tested sound for thousands of years.”

Officials worry that the demand has been exaggerated, especially for urns, and are concerned about possible fraud.

A panic ensued when a cemetery named General’s Mountain in Miaoli, central Taiwan, changed ownership suddenly. About 1,600 people have filed lawsuits to reclaim advance payments for urn spaces totaling $15 million.

“Some people invest in the dead business the way they speculate on the stock market and may lose just as badly,” said Cheng Wen-li, manager of Golden Mountain Cemetery.

Taiwan’s highly speculative stock market crashed earlier this year after rising dramatically for three years.