Controversy – China's First Man To Cryogenically Freeze His Dead Wife Has Found New Love & Cryogenically Freezing Dead Bodies Might Be The Biggest Racket In The World
BBC – A Chinese man who cryogenically froze his dead wife has sparked an online moral debate after Chinese media revealed he had been dating a new girlfriend as his former partner lay preserved in liquid nitrogen.
As a sign of his devotion, Gui Junmin decided to freeze his wife Zhan Wenlian's body after she died from lung cancer in 2017, aged 49, making her China's first cryogenically preserved person.
But after a November interview revealed he had been dating a different partner since 2020, Chinese social media has been torn on Mr Junmin's predicament.
Whilst some asked why the 57-year-old didn't just "let go" another commenter remarked he appeared to be "most devoted to himself".
Cryogenically freezing dead bodies truly might be the biggest racket we have going. I'm thinking about getting into the frozen dead body business myself. I fail to see what could go wrong. I can't imagine anybody in any part of the world is remotely close to actually bringing a frozen body back from the dead. To say those who pay to have their loved ones cryogenically frozen are doing so with "no guarantee they'll be brought back to life" is the understatement of the century. They must know deep down they're flushing money down the toilet. I have to think the only reason they do it is because either they, or the person they're freezing, is refusing to come to terms with death. Cryopreservation just allows for people to stay permanently stuck in the denial stage of their grief. It's essentially a $30,000-$200,000 coping mechanism to kick the can of coming to terms with your wife's death down the road.
I think that's roughly the cost of freezing a dead body. I'm basing that number off this NBC News article.
NBC News – Next, a contracted surgeon removes a patient's head if the member selected Alcor's "Neuro" option, as it's euphemistically called, in hopes that a new body can be grown with a member's DNA once it comes time to be thawed out. It's also the much cheaper route. At a price tag of $80,000, it's more than half the cost of preserving your whole body. "That requires a minimum of $200,000, which isn't as much as it sounds, because most people pay with life insurance," More said.
In fact, that business model is pretty consistent in the non-profit cryonics community. Michigan-based Cryonics Institute offers a similar payment structure, albeit at the more affordable cost of just $28,000 for whole-body preservation.
My point is... I could purchase an old warehouse, buy a bunch of those tanks they use to ferment wine, and charge vulnerable grieving people tens of thousands of dollars to dump their dead relatives in my big metal tanks without ever having to worry about it coming back to bite me in the ass.
That basically what these companies are doing, right? Just putting dead bodies in tanks and telling their customers, "No guarantees! But we'll try!". I'm sure their customers sign something that frees them of any liability. And I'm sure many of these companies are doing it "the right way". Or in whatever way they believe to be right. But you know some of them are just laughing to the bank. Because once that check clears, no matter what happens, they're in the clear.
I suppose a lot of these people who pay to cryogenically freeze a loved one simply have money to blow, and figure why the hell not. It's not like burying someone in the ground is a much better way to dispose of a body. It's just more socially accepted. The biggest problem is what this poor old Chinese man is now facing. Now that it's been a few years since his wife's death, Gui has gotten lonely. On top of that, he came down with a nasty case of gout.
NDTV – Gui lived alone for two years after the procedure. But in 2020, he suffered a severe gout attack that left him immobilised for two days until relatives broke down his door. He later told Southern Weekly that the incident made him realise the risks of living without companionship.
Gui needs a woman in his life to take care of him. I bet that's a fun thing to explain to someone on a date. Once things start to get serious, you have to break the news that your dead ex-wife is frozen in a tank. And in the event someone figures out how to revive her, they're going to have a real awkward zombie three's company situation on their hands.
And since Gui Junmin was the first man to ever cryogenically freeze a wife in China, he's become the Chinese face of having a frozen dead wife. Fans of true love… or hopeless romantics… or whatever you want to call them, are distraught at the news of Gui moving on to a brand new living partner.
His remarks have fuelled intense debate online. Critics accuse him of “emotional polygamy”, questioning how he can hold “one woman in his arms while waiting for another to return”. Others argue his devotion to his wife has turned into an unhealthy attachment, calling his treatment of Wang distant and unfair.
Gui himself remains conflicted, wondering whether marrying Wang could be considered bigamy if Zhan is revived and how their assets would be handled. While he insists he cannot forget his past, he says he can't live without Wang, leaving him caught between memory, morality and a future no one can predict.
What a troubling moral dilemma. A troubling moral dilemma that doesn't actually exist. Because they're not a snowball's chance in hell the Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute is ever actually going to bring his dead wife back from the grave tank.