Mr. Li said that measures governing luxury advertisements or tombs might “to a certain extent alleviate the general hatred toward rich people” but were essentially stopgaps. Still, Chen Changwen, director of the sociology department at Sichuan University, said he saw their merit in averting social conflict.

“Of course, if we cannot change the fact of the disparity between the rich and poor, the least we can do is lessen the impact of it on society and lessen the advertising of it,” he said. “A lot of people cannot handle the extravagant ways of this first generation of the wealthy. It really grates on the public.”

Ostentatious tombs are particularly irksome, he said, because many Chinese find even a simple grave marker beyond their means. In a coinage that captures the widespread frustration, someone struggling to afford burial costs is called a “grave slave.”

“There are many examples of how the rich can afford to bury the dead, but not the common people,” said Zheng Fengtian, a professor of rural development at Beijing’s Renmin University. “This makes many people very angry.”

Image Chengdu is limiting the size of burial plots and headstones. Credit... The New York Times

One spectacular example took place last month in Wenling, a coastal city south of Shanghai. Five brothers commandeered the grounds of a high school to bid their mother goodbye with pomp befitting a state funeral.