China Bids Farewell to You Benchang, the Monk Who Won Hearts at 90
On the morning of September 30, a line of mourners stretched more than a hundred metres outside the Lan Hall at Beijing’s Babaoshan funeral parlour. They had come to say goodbye to You Benchang, the Chinese actor who died in his sleep six days earlier at the age of 93. His daughter, You Sihan, told the gathering that her father had left a single message: “I’m very comfortable.” Among those who came to pay respects was actor Hu Ge, visibly shaken, while fans crouched on the ground weeping and family members held one another up.
For most of his long career, You Benchang was a working stage and screen actor rather than a household name. That changed late in life. In his nineties he played a wise, mischievous wandering monk in a popular television drama, and the performance turned him into one of the country’s most beloved older actors. Clips of his scenes circulated widely online, and younger viewers adopted him as an unlikely internet favourite — a reminder that fame in China’s entertainment industry does not always arrive on schedule.
A couplet hung at the entrance to the hall read: “Plain, modest and open in the face of life; upright, warm and devoted to ideals all his life.” The horizontal banner above it said simply, “Remembering You Benchang, we will always love you.” Those sixteen characters, one mourner said, captured him better than any long tribute.
What stood out to observers was the range of ages in the queue. University students stood beside retirees who had followed his stage work for decades, and nobody pushed forward. Chinese social media filled with clips from his films and dramas, alongside messages from people who said they had only discovered him in the past two or three years. For an industry often obsessed with youth, his late-career stardom has become a small cultural touchstone.
The farewell also drew attention to how China mourns its screen icons. Funerals for major entertainment figures regularly become public events, with fans travelling from other provinces and queues forming hours before the doors open. Babaoshan, in western Beijing, is the country’s best-known resting place for public figures, and the scale of the turnout is read as a measure of affection rather than official status.
You Benchang kept working well past the age when most actors retire, appearing in dramas and occasionally in films, and he was known for arriving early and treating younger crew members with patience. Colleagues described a man who treated acting as a craft rather than a route to celebrity, and who seemed genuinely amused by his sudden fame.
As the morning wore on, the line outside the Lan Hall slowly shortened. Flowers piled up near the entrance, and fans left handwritten notes. “He made old age look warm,” one read. For a generation of Chinese viewers, that may be the most fitting summary of a career that peaked in its final decade.