Everything is up to the living:
Frankly speaking, if you really want to change the way people do funerals, it won't be easy, and much less so if "businessmen" want to do it.
In traditional funeral services, from the approach of death until the bones were exhumed and reburied six years later, there were more than 30 important rites in the process. This doesn't include the preparatory activities. If you want change, it's not something that could be accomplished overnight.
Some people contend that the ideal commemorative method is to donate one's body for medical research or for organ transplants, and then encoffin and cremate the body, ultimately placing the ashes in a final resting place. Of course, some people do adopt this method, but you can imagine that the vast majority of people aren't willing to accept it.
One funeral director points out that it is very difficult to change popular customs. For example, Chinese people have always favored burial in the earth. In the mainland, in order to make more efficient use of the land, the Communist authorities ordered that people would have to be cremated, and that those who buried deceased persons would be punished. But in the countryside, people still hold elaborate burials, mostly with the local government turning a blind eye.
"During the Cultural Revolution, traditional funerals were strictly forbidden. It was only in the 1980s that the prohibition was relaxed, and all the old customs immediately returned in toto, without the slightest change. It's easy to talk about change, but. . . ." he says.
No matter whether one is optimistic or pessimistic, it is worth it for busy modern people to think carefully about funeral culture. Lei Chi-chung, who worked in funeral homes for 30 years, says humorously: "The dead people who come here never complain. Only the living have opinions."
It seems that how the living define "good death" is in fact the key to all the problems.
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A hall filled with memorial couplets, the door jammed with guests. . . . Does this mean that the deceased has had a glorious passing?
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It is popularly believed that though people can freely come and go when alive, after death they require the guidance of a Taoist priest to get out the door and return to "extreme joy."
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Paper high-rises and mourning music are all part of the sentiments of the relatives.
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To carry the "soul palanquin" where the soul of the deceased temporarily resides is to accompany the dead as they walk the last road in life.
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The custom of the "offering of food" expresses the filial idea of "in death as in life." But the uniform offerings in the funeral homes, which retain merely the form, give one the feeling of a chow line.
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This is even more glorious than a feast among the living!
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The view afforded by religion helps the deceased pass over into eternal life and the living to relieve their sadness.
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Master San Tsang is a highly esteemed monk. Fortunately he is a man of learning and forbearance; otherwise, he would get impatient with the people who always ask him to lead funeral processions.
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"Flower vehicles," often appear in funeral processions in rural areas in Taiwan, complete with a woman stirring on the marchers with dance. (photo by Vincent Chang)
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Is this for a festival competition? No, it's a funeral procession troupe.
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The floral hearses first used for state funerals have become beloved among citizens. The photo is from the funeral of the late president Chiang Ching-kuo. (photo coutesy of the Department of Party History of the Kuomintang)
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After the funeral, the red silk belts worn by the family and friends to send the deceased off are hung on trees outside the final resting place so that all grief will be carried away on the wind.
The floral hearses first used for state funerals have become beloved among citizens. The photo is from the funeral of the late president Chiang Ching-kuo. (photo coutesy of the Department of Party History of the Kuomintang)
After the funeral, the red silk belts worn by the family and friends to send the deceased off are hung on trees outside the final resting place so that all grief will be carried away on the wind.