The China Funeral PART 2

We awoke around 5:00 AM. Even with the drinking we felt rejuvenated and relaxed. Thank you foot massage. But I wasn’t exactly prepared for the climate still being wintery. We’d had spring-like temps in Austin for a while before I left. The wind was bone chilling exiting the hotel.

Before leaving the town, we stopped at a Sinopec for gas. Here is where one of the great China mysteries for me got solved. Five trips to China and I did not have the answer to the question “How do the Chinese get gas?” Seriously. I had no clue. Never until today had I been in a car that needed gas. Often the gas stations I have seen look deserted. And I have never been able to discern a credit card reader on the side of the pumps while driving by. What if a car needs gas in the middle of the night? This early in the morning the station looked closed. Brother pulls in, leans on the horn a few times and a sleepy looking girl in a blue smock emerges to pump our gas. Wow, question answered. We leave this town whose name I never caught and traffic was light on the highway to Zhangjiakou.

First stop is my in-law’s. I walk in and find Baba’s favorite nephew. Baba’s brother is quite a bit older, so his son if probably only 5-6 years younger than Baba. He’d been helping Baba with preparations today. He comes over to greet me. I fumble around with the cigarettes I’d picked up duty free in Dubai and offer him one. Damn, I don’t have a light. Ah he does. Of course he does! 

Baba then comes out of the back crying. He grabs me and we hug each other tightly. The days have taken their toll on Baba. I can see he hadn’t been sleeping. He has circles under his eyes.

Around the apartment are bags of Mama’s belonging to be burned so she can use them in the after life.  And not only belongings are there, but the blank representations of money in bill and coin form. Plastic gold toy watches resembling cheap party favors for American children’s birthday parties and other objects were also in bags awaiting their fiery fate.

This is when Ying says “Honey, you want to see the chicken? We have to take it to Mama’s grave.”

Oh sweet Jesus I think. “Baby, are we going to kill a chicken? Please tell me we aren’t killing any chickens.” 

“What’s wrong with you! Of course not. We let it loose on Mama’s tomb and it runs of into the wild and lives a happy life!”

She is telling me this like it’s the most normal thing in the world to do. The white bread idiot that I am had some sort of blood-letting voodoo ritual pictured in my head. Ying guides me into the kitchen. Sure enough, the chicken was there on the floor living in a taped up TsingTao box with a hole in the front so she could eat feed from a cup. She looked happy. The point of the chicken I learn later is to lead Mama’s soul (ghost?) to the grave.

We begin loading up everything into the boot of the car. Pushing. Rearranging. Making everything fit. The nephew is getting LARGE fire crackers positioned with his son. They are set up on the ground. The trash can. Stacks of bricks. Ying mentions aloud something I’d already considered. “Last time we did this it was for our wedding. Remember the rock band played right over there.”

I sit down in the front seat. My task right now is to hold Mama's framed picture with it standing up in my lap and facing forward.

Brother is having a bad time backing out. Nervousness. Inexperience. Small space. All contribute. Baba gets out and starts directing him. The car dies. And now the fire crackers are going off. These explosions are huge. Bigger than any we had at our wedding. They might even be classified as destructive devices in the United States. But what else is different from the wedding? Not a single curious resident has emerged to watch the commotion. 

We are now on the way to the funeral home. I’m amazed at how the neighborhood around Ying’s parents place has changed in 2.5 years. New apartments. A widened road. And an entrance to a new expressway around the city. 

I ask her how many funeral homes are in town. 

“Only one. It’s policy that everyone be cremated.”

As is typical for me in China, I am a little confused. “But you said her body was there?”

“Yes but we pay last respects to her body first.”

“OK, So then the cremation happens. Hey wait a minute! You said brother bought a carved coffin lid? For her ashes?”

Now I am really confused. We cremated my grandmother in 2007 per her wishes and put her ashes in a little stream near my mother’s property. Seems that sort of thing is pretty typical for cremation in the US. 

Ying gives me that look of REALLY? I have to explain this to you silly man? “Why wouldn’t we have a coffin for her? We have to bury Mama in the village I grew up in next to my grandparents.”

“OK so the coffin must not be really a coffin right? Just a small box for her ashes and you got the lid specially carved.”

“It’s a normal size coffin!”

“Huh? Why?”

“If you were going somewhere wouldn’t you rather ride in a large car than a small one?”

I look at my knees pushed up against the dash. Hmmm . . . girl has a point there.