The acidental funeral

Today, accidentally, I attended the 5^th day of the funeral ceremony. Unlike American culture, funerals last several days. The average is 7 days, but with the kings birthday on Monday the ceremony had to be shortened (monks are not allowed to perform sad ceremonies on the kings birthday apparently). The richer a family is the longer the ceremony and vice versa with poorer families. I found out all this information from a family relatives, a 30 year old female accountant from Bangkok, who had come up for the final day of the funeral. Along with her excellent English skills, she also had an amazing perspective. She said “I think one of the biggest things you will learn is Thai culture, and when you understand how we think, then we will have a more peaceful world. The community will also come to understand you.” Because of this mindset she took the liberty to explain many of the aspects of the ceremony.

I have heard the monk chanting for several nights because the temple wall lies about 15 feet from my home, and the monks use a microphone and speakers to projects the chants to the community. I was not aware of all the actions that took place until now. First the closest relative of the deceased gave a prayer, then a monk sat up on a platform and performed some sort of prayer that last about thirty minutes. From what I could understand the monk then gave a 30 minute recap of the deceased life. This was followed by more chanting with the three other monks including one 10 year. The closest relative then read the names of everyone who had donated money, and the donor came up to the monks and offered food, incense, or monk robes.

The three hour ceremony was concluded with a meal. Apparently it has become a new tradition to offer your guest snacks in a box. My “funereal narrator” told me that with ceremonies lasting so long, you want to be polite to your guest and let them take the meal home. She also added that in a village like mine many of the guests are farmers and have had a very long day at work. In Bangkok funerals only last 45 minutes to hour. The final interesting tradition is that the meal is not supposed to be anything long like a noodle, because this would represent a long time to mourn. Instead the food should be snacks and something cut up; however, long items are often served at weddings to represent a long marriage.

As I mentioned I accidently found myself at the funeral. One of my teachers, PiOy had told me that I could meet PiPie at 7 O’clock in the temple to discuss my travel arrangements for tomorrow, or at least that is what I thought I translated. I arrived at the temple at seven O’clock and was greeted with “sit down”. Before I realized any different the ceremony had started. This is one of the great things about Thailand. I never really know where the day is going to take me, or what wonderful people I am going to meet. I learned so much about the village and funerals and was able to share in a very intimate ceremony with a family. One of the elderly ladies I met that night said it best in her broken English “You not leave Thailand because soon you have many family here.”