funerals

[Ruth]

Okay, morbid subject, but I have a reason for having funerals on my mind. Someone in the apartment building behind and slightly to the right of mine died. Thursday night. The music started at 5:30 Friday morning. There are two huge speakers hanging out the window blaring this slow, depressing, funeral march kind of music. It's the same few bars over and over and over again. This is the third day.

We went out with a friend Friday evening. He filled us in on local Chinese funeral customs. Apparently the music is played for the first day, while friends and family come to the flat to pay their respects to the dead person. Our friend said that on the second day the dead person would be taken to the 'room' where they burn people. I was away all day yesterday, so wasn't home to 'enjoy' the music. I was surprised when it started again this morning. How many days does this continue? I thought the guy would be cremated and buried by now. Please don't think I'm being irreverant, because I'm not, it's just that the music is really getting on my nerves.

Also, if you are new to China, don't make the mistake, as I did, of thinking that a wagon or truck covered in large ovals made from colorful paper is a float for a parade. I can be forgiven for this, having grown up in a city that celebrates an annual flower festival with flower covered trucks and trailers in a parade. And there's the Rose Bowl parade every year on TV too. The first time I saw one of these was on Dragon Boat Festival day. I thought they were getting ready for a parade. Oops. Really what happens is that people bring these huge oval paper things to the home of the deceased, much like my culture brings or sends flowers. There are also donkeys or horses that look like large pinatas to me. These are burned. Not sure whether this is done at the graveside or when the deceased is cremated. Does anyone know?

[Ruth]

Part Two: Lei Shan and I have been discussing what music we want blared from our apartment when one of us leaves this earth. It's only fair that we get to annoy the neighborscelebrate this way too. Any suggestions? Okay - that should start a slew of humorous ideas, but I really want to discuss something serious in this thread, too.

Part Three: We both know what to do if one of us dies, but what if we both die together? Relatives in Canada know, but I haven't discussed contact info with people here. I will rectify that tomorrow. Should have done it right after we arrived, but one doesn't usually think about things like that when first arriving in a new country, even though we should.

Actually, I don't really know what to do. When my dad died, Mom had to give copies of the death certificate to everybody and their brother for finances, insurances, etc. How would that work from China? My guess is that one's embassy should be contacted. Does anyone know?

[Raoul Duke]

The Embassy should definitely be contacted, yes.

Make sure your employer knows how to contact your family or whoever you want contacted.

If you have the luxury here, consider giving a good friend your family's info, a Notify List, and other critical information and insructions. Con doesn't know it yet but he will be getting a big, well-sealed envelope from me once he's in Suzhou.

I'm building an MP3 databank for the day Radio Free Raoul's goes on the air. (Added today: Velvet Underground, Afro Celt Sound System, Aretha Franklin's Greatest Hits, and 2 CDs of Ray Charles) Play it out the window for me, if necessary.

[acjade]

If I die in China I want my ashes scattered over the Himalayas. LE that sounds like a task for you. Play Schuman's Ave Maria and Lennon's Imagine.

[Mr Nobody]

I know what I want on my tombstone. The last quatrain from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

I know what I want done for a wake: what we always do. Drink favourite drinks and eat favourite foods listening to favourite music telling stories of things each person did with the deceased. Gets to be quite a party, plus, the only immortality that is possible - in people's minds.

But I don't know what I want blaring out the window. Maybe Corvus Corax - In Tabernum. Or Mille Anne Passe Sunt.

[Ruth]

The friend who explained Chinese funeral customs to us said that out in the villages, where everybody knows everybody, IF the person who died was old and died of natural causes, they have a big singing dancing party. It's a happy time, like a wedding.

[acjade]

I can empathise with that. When my Dad finally died of cancer after nearly my entire lifetime of illness I felt happy. Not joyful but happy as in enough is enough.

When somone dies violently or when a death is premature the grief is such a long undercurrent of turmoil that you're never quite the same person again.

[Ruth]

I know the feeling, let's call it relief, when a loved one who suffers for a long time, particularly with cancer, dies. I think, now they can finally be at peace and out of the suffering.

Yes, sudden death is a whole different matter. We have no time to prepare. Our friend was careful to note that funerals were very different in the case of young people dying or an older person dying accidentally.

[Roger]

when I lived in Hong Kong I brushed Mr Death's shoulders quite often.
You must know that only the very famous and very rich can afford to be buried in a regular cemetary in HK; the lowly populace has to use a little urn and install it in a niche in a colombarium somewhere in the New Territories (very common in the mainland too).

But the middle-classes would bury their deceased in CHEUNG CHAU (Mandarin: Chang Zhou, or Long Island). This is a mediterranean-looking communitysome 1 kms from HK proper and accessible only by ferry (or government helicopters). No cars are allowed on the island which is home to possibly over 10'000 inhabitants.

One half of the island is dedicated cemetary area, a beautiful, forested part with huge lots full of large graves. Have you ever seen a Chinese gravestone? Most are in the shape of some object such as a house or a temple or palace and cover more space than is necessary for 2 people. You guess that the more space they buy the "Richer" they must have been in life!

Now the lugubrious part is this: the dead come mainly from the city. How do they get to Cheung Chau?

By passenger ferry! You would see mourners boarding the boat and the coffin right beside them on the lower deck. Sometimes some men come along beating those drums or gongs that come with a cortege.
In Cheung Chau they disembark together with the rest of the passengers, and slowly wend their way to a nearby temple not too far from the pier. The dead will then be placed inside the temple and a wake is held throughout the night.

My impression is that the interment of a dead is not in itself an emotion-inducing act. Sometimes you can see children frolick.
The important ritual is to burn Hell's Money (English and CHinese imprints), and paper models of cars or other luxury possessions.

Also important: cemetaries must be selected by geomants who know fengshui principles. The dead must not be allowed to interfere with the lives of the living. That's why cemetaries often are in the hills.

[con's fly is open]

I want peoples' reactions to my death to be: " What? I thought he died years ago." Life rocks: I have never gotten over the fact that I exist in the first place. I never will.

Okay, I'm dead: i take the Vulcan position, which is do whatever is practical with the body. The whole point of me is (was) the fact that my life influenced the universe. My funeral soundtrack must reflect this, and make the guests look forward. A few sad songs, vastly outnumbered by the happy songs, because life rocks. I will (posthumously) judge my wake by how many people had sexual intercourse after attending.

[Lotus Eater]

Given that I plan on living forever (my lifeline goes right round my hand and starts again) this isn't something that I actually need to consider. However, my children have instructions that if the best laid plans of this (wo)man gang a'glay a) THEY have to play Beethoven's 9th for me (Song of Joy) and b) send my ashes to the moon.

I also instructed them that if I went gaga they were to put me down - they figure the time has come already.

I have a friend who has decided that if I pop off here, then she will buy one of the massive, beautifully decorated wooden casks that we watched a coffin maker make in a small village in Guizhou, put me in it, and tie it behind a freighter headed for Australia. But she also wants to give me a sky burial, so I think there is a slight problem there. Her song for my funeral "I would walk 500 miles .....".

it's nice to have family and friends.

[Wolf]

When I go? Haven't thought of it much. A simple "stick me in the ground in a timely manner" would do I suppose, what with my lack of next of kin and all.

Music?

"Ride of the Valkyries" at full volume. Preferably by a live orchestra. (Yeah, I'm not bloodly likely to go to Valhalla, but any death involving hot warrior babes is at least worth a go.)

"Bright Side of Life" by Monty Python. Perfect.

Several assorted Baha'i songs I don't think are all that well known.

IRISH bagpipe tunes.

I also take requests. Well, until I'm actually dead.

[Mr Nobody]

Oh, yeah, forgot about the body. Do whatever you want with it, it's just meant when I am not in it. In orbit sounds nice, but they only send a fraction of the ashes. At sea? Viking funeral?

Dunno. A bit of all the above. Cremation, followed by the ashes being distributed hither and yon in a flurry of entertainment for the masses.

Yeah, what a way to go.

[Ruth]

Update: this morning - actually in the middle of the night - I heard the funeral music again. It was too dark to see the clock and I was too lazy to get up and look. Besides, I thought maybe I was dreaming it, since the melody has been well entrenched in my mind. About 10 minutes after I first woke up to the funeral dirge, the tinny horns, cymbals and drums started. You know, that screeching stuff the Chinese call music. Lei Shan startled awake and I jumped out of bed. 3:50 a.m. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Lights were coming on all over the apartment complex. I figured, between our building and the other 3 or 4 around the funeral procession, that about 120 families were being treated to this wake-up call.
They were down in front of the building gathering vehicles, paper horses, etc. The music lasted about a half hour.

Checked the custom out with a friend today. She said the middle of the night thing is very common. Sometimes they will play all night (thank God for mercies, we only had a half hour). It's a sign of respect for the deceased. (I didn't figure it was just to annoy the neighbors.) She also shed some light on why it may have lasted 3+ days. It's something to do with the lunar calendar. A person won't be buried on the 7th, 17th, 27th or 8th, 18th, or 28th. She wasn't sure why. So, if a person died on the 5th, for example, it could be 4 days before the burial.

Lots to learn about customs here.
P.S. I'm going to bed early tonight; I'm tired.

[Raoul Duke]

ruth said:

I first woke up to the funeral dirge, the tinny horns, cymbals and drums started. You know, that screeching stuff the Chinese call music. Lei Shan startled awake and I jumped out of bed. 3:50 a.m.

It's times like this that I wish guns were legal here.

Good on ya, Ruth, for perservering with this excellent thread. You've filled in a number of holes for me.

I used to work in a school facing across an alley into a funeral parlor. (Appropriate enough...it was an AES school...) Didn't get to see these details, but got the cat-torture music and the huge road-blocking milling crowds. Also got to see a Chinese hearse, a most impressive-looking Dragon Wagon. People there would come wearing white robes and tall conical peaked white hoods, so pulling up in a taxi looked a lot like driving into a Ku Klux Klan rally. Unnerving.

As for me, I want to be dried and smoked by my friends. No point in wasting it.

[Ruth]

No conical white hats here. White is the color for funerals - purity, I was told. The close relatives here wear a flat topped hat with about a 3 inch band around the head. On the front is a roll of white material that almost covers the entire forehead.

Not sure I was wishing for a gun this morning, but I had a fleeting thought about firecrackers. But then I told myself that someone had died, these people were dealing with it in the way that is their custom, and I'm the one choosing to live here. Still...

BTW: I like the 'cat-torture music' wording. Describes it perfectly.

[Mr Nobody]

Sounds like if we all die at the same time, there will be one hell of a party. I wish I was there.

In fact, I would like to go to my own party, then die afterwards. LONG afterwards. Like a couple of millenia.

[George61]

You've filled in a number of holes for me.

Groan!! Was that intentional?
Nobby, if we all die at once there will be no party.....unless sperling decides to celebrate!
Ruth, this is a nice little thread...a tad morbid, but informative. I have seen one or two processions and figured out they were funerals, but didn't have anyone to ask for details.

[acjade]

Our ex Dean took us out for a ride in the country last year. We passed a funeral procession which he decided to gate crash. Never gate-crashed a wake before.

That man was so cheap it wouldn't surprise me if he billed the villagers for an impromptue English Salon.

[Ruth]

george61 said:

but didn't have anyone to ask for details.

Does Babe charge for cultural information? Tell me to MYOB if you want to. I always thought you guys who have wives or girlfriends who are Chinese had an in that the rest of us don't have, as far as learning stuff, that is.

[George61]

This was pre-Babe, Ruth. I ask about stuff I see, but if I forget, it gets forgotten.

[Ruth]

but if I forget, it gets forgotten.

Oh, what a set-up for an age/senility wise crack.

[George61]