Cool Funerals?

The most intriguing part of my holiday this year was a glimpse of Chinese funeral traditions. My mom's aunt died on the first day of Spring Festival. We went to her village on the 4th day for a feast.

In the hustle bustle of Spring Festival feasts and parties, everyone forgot to tell me that there was a death in the family. I just thought we were going to my uncle's house to visit. When we got out of the car, there was a guy outside the village with scraps of white sheet tied around his legs and waist. He also had one scrap fashioned into a hat. When we got to the entrance of the village, he got on his hands and knees and bowed to us... similar to how Muslims pray to Mecca. I assumed he was Chinese Muslim and was following some cultural rite for the new year. (Jason later told me it was his mother that died.)

When we got in the courtyard though, everyone in my family was dressed the same way and they were passing out bundles of white cloth to my mom and her sisters as we walked in the door. I'm like, ok honey, what's going on here? Jason says that in China, white is the color of mourning. Village people are normally poor laborers and the bits of sheet are a substitute for white garments. In city funerals, you would likely see people dressed in nice white clothes.

After chatting a bit and drinking some tea, we all moved outside to the courtyard for the feast. I noticed something colorful around the corner and dragged Jason behind me for an explanation. Chinese pinatas???

There were life sized paper machet horses, bulls, and lions. The alley was lined with nearly a dozen of these giant beauties!  Jason said the people in the picture will be servants to help in the afterlife. And that wasn't all, he said that over the span of the day, they would bring in colorful life-sized versions of EVERYTHING you would want in the afterlife... including a refrigerator, TV, and microwave. All this stuff cost about $500 USD and will be paraded out to the field on the day of the funeral and burned to be received by the person on the other side.

I wish I had gotten to see it all. I really wanted to go to the funeral but didn't dare ask. Most of my Chinese family thinks I'm weird enough already.