After life.

Due to waiting for my brother, we arrived at the village just on time. But they had started early and were waiting for us. We got into white clothing and my uncle came to pick us up. Together we walked down the road and around the bend. It was only until we were approaching the mound that my mum broke down crying. As we walked up to the mound I saw my relatives, all in white, to the right was my grandmother’s casket. I held my mum as she was beside herself. The ritual began and we started bowing to the prayers of the ‘monk’. I had been to one other Chinese funeral, that of my grandfather 11 years ago so I knew what to expect. There are many rules and traditions to the ritual of the funeral, which is passed down, and even my auntie who organized it needed others to tell her the ways.

Before the casket goes into the ground, we have the last opportunity to look at the recently deceased. It was odd seeing my gran lying there done up by the mortician. She didn’t look bad. Only I remember her when she was alive only 4 weeks ago. It was strange. To me, she still felt alive, despite that I did become upset and it was a dizzying experience until she went into the ground.

The main aspect of the funeral is to hire ‘monks’- neither in robes or who are bald- to perform to music and ‘prayers’/’songs’ and to instruct us when to bow towards the gods and to the recently deceased. The bowing is done standing and on your knees depending and is done at about 20minute stretches with a 20 min break, followed by another 20 mins. This went on for about 3 hours. My grandfather’s went on for 6hrs. There is also the burning of fake money and paper- this I think is to give it to the afterlife to ‘spend’, an offering.

While on my knees bowing, getting up and then on my knees bowing again in the hot sun, I realized that after hours that far from being an alien ritual I was forced to perform at the behest of my relatives, I actually felt it was a necessary act to follow in the wishes and beliefs of my grandmother. It can be pretty painful on the knees, the calf’s, the feet and it can be pretty hot- but- I was going to do this for my grandmother so she got a good send off to the afterlife- whether I myself believe it or not, I knew she did.

My brother, who lacks common sense and social graces spent half of the time trying to talk to the family, who he hadn’t seen for 10 years and play with our little cousin who he’d never met. Although I do not disagree with him coming all this way to Hong Kong, he actually did come for a week to work in recent years and never contacted or gran or any of our family to meet. It reminds me of the film Tokyo Story where the son leaves the ritual of his mothers funeral and says something to the effect of, ‘I did nothing for her in life, I cannot make up for it in death’.

On the way home my brother asked me how my day was. I reminded him it was a funeral and added that he obviously didn’t feel the same way we did because unfortunately, he barely knew her. Moreover, he said he had a pretty good day connecting with family he hadn’t seen in over 10 years. These were times where tongue biting became a really useful skill. It was also a reminder as to why I hadn’t seen him in 3 years.

The funeral ritual seemed a real process in sending her off to the afterlife and perhaps it’s just me, but everyone seemed to have said goodbye by the end of it.

- J