When Lin Yuanjing's husband died of liver cancer in February she was prepared with the wads of cash she knew would be needed to navigate the bureaucracy of death.

The first people she paid were the hospital nurses and orderlies so they would clean her husband's body and treat it with respect when they moved it to a freezer cupboard in the morgue. Then she paid an orderly to help her register the death with the public security bureau and Shanghai government and contact the state-owned funeral parlour.

At the parlour, the grieving widow was confronted by a baffling menu of goods and services intended to smooth her husband's departure – from jade urns costing Rmb40,000 ($6,000, ￡4,000, €4,500) to paper money to be burnt for her husband's use in the afterlife.