By My brother and I sat at our kitchen table puzzling over the pieces of the cardboard house. Did we need to cut out the tiny chauffeur and maid? Our grandmother’s scolding voice suddenly swirled in our heads. “Ohh. My. God,” Mah Mah exclaimed at dim sum that morning. “The funeral is in two days!”
Weeks before, in his long-term facility room near San Francisco, Calif., Herman Louis Hom died. My uncle was the firstborn of my grandparents, Cantonese and Hong Kong immigrants who decades ago settled in San Francisco, Calif. A disease at birth left Uncle unable to speak, and three decades later a surgery gone wrong rendered most of his body paralyzed. However, like many Chinese people, Mah Mah believed if we gave Uncle a proper Chinese funeral and adhered by Taoist and Buddhist death rites, a comfortable afterlife awaited uncle’s soul.
Traditional Chinese Death Rites and Superstitions Explained
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Death rites are essential to honor our loved ones, though conversely they are potential minefields; as a devoutly superstitious people, the Chinese view death as a source of bad luck. If someone performs a funeral rite incorrectly, the decedent’s soul may not reach the next world, or arrive there penniless and starving. Only by following rituals can that fate be avoided.
Some believe the 49-day journey to the next world begins immediately after death, when the soul and spirit separate from the physical body. Usually a Taoist priest is called to facilitate the journey, but like other Chinese-Americans slowly Westernized over time, my family opted out of this and other traditional rites. Still, Mah Mah made sure we executed the rites she deemed necessary.
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One rite includes phoning a Taoist priest to find a “good day” to hold the funeral and burial. According to Rev. Jefferson Lee of the Ching Chung Taoist Association of America, a “good day” takes into consideration multiple factors on the feng shui calendar, including the deceased’s Chinese Zodiac sign and unlucky “double death” days. “If the person was born in the year of the horse, they will not pick a day of the rat,” Lee said.
The rest of us — uncle’s two brothers and their families, including my brother and I — readied the items we intended to give Uncle’s spirit for the next life. Another tradition is the burning of joss money, or symbolic spirit money, during the wakes. As the smoke rises, the deceased receives the items in the next world. Over the years, the types of spirit paper items grew to include houses, cars, and even modern technology. “It’s interesting to see a small little cell phone and it’s burned,” said Bob Yount, the president of Green Street Mortuary in San Francisco.
Uncle Herman’s paper house arrived via Amazon, and my brother and I were the contractors. It was a mansion fit with a courtyard, a pool, a motorcycle and two cars. “Can you imagine Uncle Herman on a motorcycle?” I mused. Swapping his wheelchair for popping wheelies. Watching baseball games with friends in his den.
It’s bad luck for the elderly and pregnant women to attend funerals as death may prey on them
We picked a wooden casket for Uncle Herman because Buddhists want a material that decomposes and reunites with the earth. Inside the casket, one puts joss money, clothes and items the decedent may need. Some Chinese place three grains of rice in the decedent’s mouth to “feed” them during their 49-day journey; others deposit a coin in their hand as toll to enter the afterlife. Mah Mah decided upon uncle’s rectangular glasses and his pair of shoes. Worried if his old clothes would fit — he frequently wore a hospital gown — Mah Mah put in new outfits instead.
The Funeral and Burial
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Chinese superstitions about death date thousands of years, many which shape funerals and burials to this day. Wearing the lucky color red to a funeral is considered inauspicious. Instead, Chinese people wear white as a mourning color, though Westernized Chinese wear black or dark clothes. Family members can wear silk arm bands or hair ribbons of different colors to denote the relation to the deceased, too, Yount said. Our family donned black, and then drove up the windy road to Skylawn Memorial in Half Moon Bay.
Mah Mah wanted a simple funeral, so just our immediate family attended. We arrived to find an elevated incense holder, a plate of tangerines, a table full of food and joss items, and the flower wreaths we and other relatives sent. In the center was Uncle Herman, who lay in his head-to-toe open casket. Mah Mah saw him and burst into tears.
It’s bad luck for the elderly and pregnant women to attend funerals as death may prey on them; an old saying says a “grey-haired” person shouldn’t attend funerals of a “black-haired” person. It was unlike Mah Mah, a strictly superstitious woman, to break these rules. “But I just love Herman,” she told me. “I didn’t pay attention. I went.”
The cousins all mimicked American rappers tossing bills into the flames. “Uncle Herman will be a millionaire!”
The funeral home staff lit incense and each of us took turns bowing three times in front of Uncle Herman’s body. According to Good Luck Life by Rosemary Gong, each bow represents the past, present and other world.
Then came the blanket ceremony, when family members lay a silk blanket on the deceased as a gift to keep their spirit warm. Different designs can signify Buddhsim, Christianity, or familial relationships. Children often go first to thank their parents for tucking them in as children. Uncle had no kids, but as brothers, nieces and nephews, we laid three. Mah Mah tucked a special blanket signifying her motherhood. We bowed anew, whispering prayers.
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Afterwards, the funeral staff led us outside for the burning. “Take more, take more,” Mah Mah urged my cousins and I, pressing huge stacks of joss spirit bills, the house, and “servant” dolls into our hands. The cousins all mimicked American rappers tossing bills into the flames. “Uncle Herman will be a millionaire!”
Before the burial, Mah Mah passed out Chinese red envelopes containing a quarter and Starbursts. Commonly white envelopes are also distributed, the combination a makeshift version of typical envelopes used in China that are white with red stripes, Lee said. The candy cancels the bitterness of the day, and the money for good fortune. “You have to eat it and spend the money today,” dad warned us, or else it’s bad luck.
The pallbearers loaded the casket in the hearse and drove to the grave site. “Look away,” the staff said as they lowered the casket. Our souls might get trapped inside if we watch.
Jingyi (經衣; ‘threads and clothes’): A type of joss paper with images of items needed by the dead as “daily necessity”, such as clothes, shoes, cups, and scissors, printed on the surface. Image via Wikimedia.
The funeral staff then handed each of us a red rose; items like flowers, colored arm bands and even the gloves used by pallbearers are dropped into the gravesite as a final sign of respect. One by one my family rose from our fold-out chairs and dropped ours in. Quickly my grandmother tossed hers last, and it thudded. “Herman!” She said, raising her voice like she often did when he was alive. “Mom and Dad love you. Rest and be safe, okay??”
Our final destination was a Chinese lunch, a tradition meant to remember the deceased as a family one last time. One isn’t supposed to go home immediately in case spirits follow you home. Still, Mah Mah asked if she could stop by the house to hang uncle’s photo in a makeshift altar she had made. The incense and tangerines were set up already, and she assured us the altar was set apart from the rest of our family photos because, she said, “that’s bad luck.”
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