- Mood:
If you ever thought about funerals in general it's not a very pleasant to attend. I only know western type as I seen on the movies. If somebody would have filmed a Chinese funerals they will have to follow us for approximately a certain time of preparation with sewing the white robes to the adult including a hand sewn white west, a pointy white hat with a a square sack cloth on it. The shape reminds me about Ku Klux Klan face masks but with showing the face. A obedience staff which consist of a bamboo stick with a piece of sack cloth covering the top and wrapped with a piece of white cloth.
The children will be wearing a white hat with a red square cloth sewn in the middle or wearing a completely red hat. The oldest son will be carry the adult robes but also a bamboo with leaves. On the leafy bamboo it will be a charm attached to it. I do not know what it say on the charm but I guess something with fortune or wishing the departed soul a safe journey to a paradise. I'm not sure about not being reborn so don't ask me. I think they have mixed Buddhism with other beliefs as it was a monk who did the ceremony.
Oh yeah, you contacted a monk who know how to do funerals and everyone else in the city would come and help you with prepare the house for taking so many guests, cook and make the scrolls with wishing and including all the family members for the dead to protect, a huge doll house to symbolize a real house so the dead can live. Papers dolls, building the altars, buying food like pork, whole chicken, ducks,fish,vegetables, a special cut paper who is giving the idea of a traditional Chinese clothes, yellow papers, hell bank dollars...the list could go on....I haven't caught everything as I do not know much about more of the preparation than I have seen.The actual ceremony takes two days to complete, one day before the actual ceremony everyone helps with putting cardboard in the entire house(for protecting the floor), getting the tables, building altars, clean the space where the altars should be, cooking for everyone. Adults have to stay awake from 8 am on the first day of the ceremony to prepare more so they can perform the first ceremony at 10 am. During they day it will be 6-10 ceremonies. The adults had to stay awake until 3 am on the first ceremony day.
A ceremony begins with the monk prays and sings, he is followed by his two musician who plays cymbals. The entirely party is consisted of 5 people. All the family members wears their funeral clothes and knee sitting and stay quiet until you are free to go. The incenses are burning in the altars they have prepared for each ceremony. There is too many things to remember about the ceremony as each time it will be a different one. What I most recall is taking the portrait of the dead and jumping over a burning thing several times symbolize they are ensured a safe journey. Another thing is that the monk had some alcohol in the mouth and he spit out each time a upside down bowl needed to be turned over and it was 4 bowls who needed to be turn on the right side. The 5th bowl is smashed by the monk and it symbolize he is setting the soul free according to what I think it is meant to be.
The longest ceremony is the last I had to attend as it lasted over 40 minutes. The others was only 20 minutes long. The 20 minutes ceremony is really painful as if you aren't used to knee sitting on a hard ground for 15 minutes you have no idea how it is. If you really want to try do it when it's around 0 Celsius/32 Fahrenheit on a thin cardboard on the hard asphalt for at least 15 minutes(dress warm). And you cannot move freely exactly as they are others who have to share the space with you.
The 40 minutes ceremony was mostly about walking 10 rounds after the monk and his company from the altar to the entire house and back to the altar again to show our respect by bowing with a lighted incense stick in the north and the south altar(there was one altar in all of the four cardinal points and one in the middle). The air was heavy with the smell of incense and it was really smoky in the tent so I really longed for the whole thing to end. I was afraid I was going to trip and destroy someone's clothes with the burning incense but I didn't. I know how painful it is to get that incense stick burning on your skin.
This is partly my Easter 2008, tomorrow is the last funeral ceremony day. If you ask why we are doing this, the answer I got is ensure the soul a safe journey to the paradise, a farewell to the sorrow year and a new start. Oh by the way, this isn't my first funeral farewell ceremony. This is actually my second as my grandfather passed away one year before my grandmother did so we had this day one funeral ceremony three years in a row. A week ago I didn't know I would spend my Easter with funeral ceremony. When I began writing this entry I wouldn't know it would be a long one as I'm dog tired after being in the entire day except for 3 pm to 6 pm at the place where ceremony took place.
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