“The most important thing in life is to be buried well,” is an old
Chinese adage that reflects the importance of funerals in traditional
Chinese culture. Funerals are the most important life passage ritual,
surpassing weddings and birthdays in priority, expense, and
significance. For the Chinese, death means becoming either an ancestor
who has a continued relationship with its family or a ghost that
endangers society. In either case, the spirit or soul exists to have an
interactive relationship with the living. Because ancestor reverence is
the cornerstone of Chinese cultural belief and social structure, death
rituals are of serious concern and are the most important of Chinese
religious practices.
With death, a family member has the potential for
becoming a beneficent ancestor, and funerals are the ritual means of
accomplishing this transition. A well-disposed corpse will have a safe,
peaceful spirit that will reward its family with good fortune for many
generations. Corpse and spirit disposition are also community concerns
because the improper disposal of the dead will produce an unhappy spirit
that will cause havoc and bad luck for all. Such concern with spirit
welfare and familial duty is expressed and judged by the funeral
procured, particularly if the funeral is for one’s parents. A
respectable funeral presentation to show filial duty, respect, and
spirit concern becomes necessary to “save face” (Yang 1961:38, 44-53).
In Confucian China, the patrilineal family structure of descent
through its males dictates the ritual procedures at funerals. Family
members performed rites in the order of males first according to
generational seniority. The eldest son or chief mourner started first,
then the other sons, then the daughters-in-law, then the daughters. The
eldest grandson was next, and so on. When an offering was made to the
deceased, the family member, in a prostrated position, bowed three
times, with the forehead touching the ground. The offering was concluded
with a single bow. Today, many Chinese simply stand and bow from the
waist with hand palms placed together in front (Kiong 1990:97; Kiong
1993:136; Yang 1961:39).
For the traditional Chinese, the family is revered, its order valued,
and its continuity essential. As an enactment of familial loyalty,
funerals are a family concern. Not only does the final disposition
create an ancestor, the execution and largesse of the funeral are
statements of the family’s social status and filial devotion. According
to Confucianism, the physical act of performing the mortuary rituals is a
necessary regimen that asserts the hierarchical family order, the
obligations of its members, and the family’s social conformity to the
group-centered culture (Yang 1961:44-45).
Coins (li shi or lucky money) are given to guests and helpers at various
stages of the funeral in exchange for their exposure to the airs of
death. The red color of the paper wrapping symbolizes life and is a
prophylactic against death airs. Another coin to absorb the death airs
is wrapped in white paper (the color of death) and is sometimes given
together with the red-wrapped coin. In New York, only the white li shi,
provided by the mortuary, is offered. These coins should be spent
immediately, preferably on something sweet to remove the bitter taste of
death and to transfer out the pollution (Crowder 2002:76-77, 212;
Watson 1982:163).
Dispersing the Ritual Area and Eliminating Pollution
Anything associated with the funeral is destroyed or must be
purified. Mourning clothes and funeral items are either burned or buried
with the deceased. In the Cantonese villages of San Tin and Ha Tsuen,
for instance, the termination of mourning on the 7th day after the
burial is marked by a ceremony known as “putting on the red” in which
the mourning family exchange their white clothes for red ones (Watson
1982:165-66). Rooms that have been occupied by the corpse are purified
with smoke, rice, or salt. If a sacred cosmic space was created, the
priest disperses it. Funeral guests make a detour on their way home to
leave the death airs elsewhere. Like the mourning family, they might
purify themselves by stepping over a fire or ritually washing themselves
with water infused with purifying red pomegranate seeds or pomelo
leaves before entering their homes (Schipper 1993:77; Thompson
1973:167-68; Watson 1982:164-66).
Taboos regarding death are taken seriously, even in the modern urban
context. Mortuaries in American Chinatowns are virtually closed during
Chinese New Year. This life-affirming festival is a time of renewal for
everyone to make a fresh start. Any mention of or activity regarding
death is bad luck and will cast a pall over the coming year. To go
directly to someone’s home from a mortuary is inconsiderate. For the
elderly especially, it is culturally inappropriate to ask them what type
of funeral they would like or to show them something related to death.
Even going to a florist and seeing a funeral wreath being assembled is
considered bad luck, and to accidentally bump into it is worse. Some
Chinese will make a detour to avoid passing a cemetery. Most will go to a
funeral expecting to receive some good luck charm (red-wrapped money, a
piece of red thread) or will carry something with them for protection
(garlic or scallions wrapped with bamboo in a pomelo leaf or crucifixes)
(Crowder 2002:397; Watson 1982).
Postburial Rites
One or three days after the burial, the family returns to the grave
to thank the earth and make simple offerings. Mortuary rituals are held
again 100 days or a year later. Offerings are made at the grave on
anniversary dates of the deceased’s birth and death and at seasonal
festivals such as ching ming, the spring grave-cleaning festival.
Ching Ming / Qing Ming
Throughout the month of April, everyone visits their family graves with
offerings. Participation ranges from private sacrifices to grand clan
ceremonies at the tombs of the founding ancestor and other illustrious
members. Its fall counterpart, chung yeung, is similar but smaller in
magnitude due to the less favorable weather.
Feast of Souls / Hungry Ghost Festival
At the Hungry Ghost or
Feast of Souls Festival in August, many families burn paper goods for
the comfort of their dead relatives. This community festival is
society’s effort to appease and comfort orphan ghosts with food
offerings, the burning of incense, and the reading of Buddhist
scriptures (Gallin 1966:229-30; Li 1996:138-39; Overmeyer 1986:63-66,
87; Schipper 1993:37).
Conclusion
Traditional Chinese funerals are dynamic, sensory-inundating ritual
performances that impress on the mourners the importance of the
interrelationship between the living and the dead to the family order
and of the need to sustain this order with reciprocating,
cause-and-effect rituals. They engage the family in a collective pursuit
that is demonstrative of their filial devotion, sense of social
responsibility, and social status as a group.
The discourse of Chinese funerals continues to incorporate and define
the deceased in group terms, structurally and morally, to an extent not
found in the West. Funerals function to safely create an ancestor rather
than to primarily memorialize the deceased and to comfort the living,
as is typical in Western societies.
There is a Chinese saying that out of crisis comes opportunity. Death is
a disruptive crisis that forces open a gap between the earthly
existence and the spirit one that is bridged by rituals. Death is also
the opportunity to transition a family member from a biological
propagator to a spiritual benefactor. As the “white” affair that
alternates with the “red” affair of birth, death creates the cyclical
change that regenerates the life process.
Red and white, life and death,
are necessary complements of each other. Symbols of regeneration (the
symbols of nails, green, the rice measure) and the color red, for the
vitality of life, are always present at funerals to balance death by
instating its connection to the life, spiritual and physical, that will
continue from it. For the Chinese whose identity is group centered
around the family, death is a regenerative element to family perpetuity
rather than a final end.
Omnilogos
