The China Funeral PART 4

For the past 30 minutes I was not sure where my wife went with the “handler.” I peek out of our waiting room and see another group emerging from their services room. Suddenly, FeiFei comes running towards me in her odd shuffling manner I had forgotten until just now. She says in staccato, “Michael. Lei Ying. This way! Follow me!” 

We find Ying paying for flowers in the middle of the building. These 3-4 feet and some even 5 feet wide arrangements are in round patterns. I give Ying the scoop on her Auntie in the waiting room and suggest she stop in for a minute. Ying does and the Auntie is comforted briefly. But there are still more preparations to be done. We walk briskly to the far side of the building where the service is to be held. This is the first time I have seen the room. Just outside the doors, we hang a basket full of candy that mourners will take upon exiting. I am surprised to see the flower arrangements already set up along three walls of this large room. I suppose to myself that the flowers had been ready for a while and we just paid for them later. Several more arrangements are brought in to fill in a little more space. There are banners across them with Chinese writing. Mama’s picture is being projected on the far wall.

The monks are now arriving with prayer books in hand. The mix of five male and female monks come in and talk with Ying for a moment and then get into formation. Two are on one side of the room and three on the other. This is when Mama’s body is wheeled in on a gurney by two men dressed in medical scrubs. I am not sure how much of the typical funeral home preservative work was done on Mama. With cremation pending, any amount seems superfluous to this Western brain. Her bloated face is caked with make-up.  A cloth covers her body from the neck down. Ying has already told me Mama has new clothes. We will not see them. 

What I initially believe to be a pedestal holding up a cylindrical glass topped coffin for a body turns out to be a hollow contraption that swings away at the rear with hinges. The rear of the plexiglass top  is attached to this door too. The gurney with the body is wheeled snuggly inside and everything seals up to give the illusion of a body lying in state beneath glass. I am oddly reminded of various deceased Communist dictators.

Before all this is accomplished, however, brother collapses to his knees crying and wailing. So does Ying. Suddenly I realize my mission here. Give my family the support they need. Pick them up and hold them when they need it. Brother pounces up and begins to approach the body being wheeled inside the pedestal. I could see this being a potential disaster. The two medical scrub men look his way sternly. FeiFei and I hold him back while he cries out “Mama!” After that situation is under control I go to Ying, pick her up and hold her. She cries into my chest.

Now, it’s time to return outside. The whole family is gathered near the guard booth. The cute handler still in the hot pink coat but now with an equally inappropriate giggly smile on her face too, is directing us into positions in line. Brother, DuoDuo, Baba and FeiFei are first. Ying and I are second. At least 75 other family members and friends are behind us. A six piece marching band has been assembled in front to lead all of us. The members of the band are wearing uniforms that appear to be military formal dress. Their demeanor is not very military-like, however. Instead of standing at attention, they are looking bored and hanging all over each other as I tend to see young Chinese youths do. 

The smiling handler says something and we begin our long march back to the services room with the band playing an unrecognizable (to me at least) dirge along the way. Suddenly on my right I notice cannons. 

There are at least 10 of them and I’d describe them as looking like quarter scale howitzers. They begin firing the loudest explosives out of their barrels. FeiFei covers DuoDuo’s ears. And it dawns on me that this is sort of modeled on a military funeral. Did Mama have a secret life I didn’t know about? I make a mental note to ask Ying later.  Now we must concentrate on getting through this and into the room. She collapses several times. Baba helps me pick her up. At the end of the long march, I am nearly fully supporting her. 


Just outside the services room, i notice an odd relief sculpture on the wall that looks more Egyptian to me than Chinese.

We enter the services room. The monks have already begun chanting. Most of the mourners seem to know the words and follow along. We, the immediate family, and a few close nieces and nephews are the only ones that need to be bowing. We take directions from one of the monks on when to get on our knees, bow, get back on our knees, stand up, bow standing, get back down, stay down and then mostly down and bowing repetitively. This all happens on a hard marble (of course! it’s China! Marble is cheap!) floor. Twenty minutes later my knees are killing me. Thirty minutes later and I’m about to lose it. Selfishly I wish for the knee pads I own from doing the house remodel. Then I realize this is a great example of filial piety that I taught 14 year olds in World Geography in what seems like a lifetime ago. Concepts like this can seem so foreign and distant in the classroom even to an instructor, but here it is, a part of my life now.

Ying is inches away and looks over at me. “Honey, you can sit.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to offend anyone.”

“Look back.”

Sure enough. Older relatives are sitting. Others are on their knees.  Not sure I want to be classified as older yet. I can’t even use the excuse that my knees hurt from some old football injury.

Ying has tears in her eyes. “I love you. Thanks for being here for me.” she whispers.

I nod and mouth the words back to her as I sit.

Ahhhh . . . that feels much better. I can tell now the service is coming to some sort of a conclusion. The chants are getting faster. We bow a few more times and I am able to join in after my brief rest. Not so bad now. Maybe my knees are acclimated.

Everyone now stands. We, the immediate family, lead the mourners around the pedestal  and body. Auntie and one of her daughters, that I never met before, are wailing louder and louder as we walk around multiple times. Ying, brother and Baba are crying softly. The chanting stops. The mourners break-up and begin to disperse out the door. I finally see Baba’s sister and my favorite Auntie and drinking buddy when she was healthier. She comes crying and hugs me tightly. She stays with us. This time one man in scrubs emerges from the back door to retrieve Mama. As she is pulled out and being wheeled through that door, Ying again collapses. I tend to her but look up. Brother is stepping towards the gurney whispering Mama over and over. Again, FeiFei and I find ourselves holding him back. Mama is wheeled away. The door closes.

Ying is off the floor again. Through her cries she says to me “Oh, they are going to burn her. It’s so horrible. Does she feel anything?”

“No, she couldn’t possibly.” 


When I consider some of the Chinese ideas of ghosts and spirits, I am not sure if she honestly thinks it is possible or this is shock manifesting itself. I am reminded a few years back when discussing options for ourselves, I brought up cremation, suggesting we spread our ashes on the mountain we had climbed during my first visit to see her. She was horrified with what I thought was a lovely idea. She instead suggested that we buy a plot and be buried together either in the U.S. or China for all eternity with me adding “or at least until eminent domain does us in a second time.” She may not have realized then anything other than cremation was not an option . . . at least in Zhangjiakou.

Duties in the services room are complete. The monks are packing up and leaving. The relatives are waiting for us outside in the hallway munching on the candy.  The Auntie is still wailing and crying loudly. Something unexpected happens. Brother angrily shouts in Chinese what I later learn is roughly translated into English as “ If you old bitches don’t shut up now, you are going to have to leave!” Silence falls over the crowd. Ying’s benefactor cousin collects his wife, brother and his wife, his auntie and cousins and whisks them out the door. To say he did this with a cross look on his face would be a major understatement. This is one chap I do not want to make angry.