My paternal grandfather, Yeh Yeh, passed away in 2002 at the young age of 85. Though I had experienced the passing of a good friend and a teacher in my childhood, this was my first experience with a beloved family member.
A Chinese funeral ceremony was held for my Yeh Yeh. Our family, possibly influenced by Western tradition with interracial or intercultural marriages among most of my father’s siblings, did not perform all of the traditions according to custom. Usually, when there is a passing in the family, it is common for all statues of deities in the household to be covered with red paper, for mirrors to be removed, and to have a white piece of cloth hung over the main entrance of the house. In many circumstances, a gong is placed to the left of the doorway if the deceased is male and to the right if the deceased is female.
About a week before the ceremony, the Wong family had set up a website where Yeh Yeh’s obituary was posted. On the website was an area for us to leave comments, an informal way of taking a moment to reflect and pay respects to him. Interestingly, these comments were first posted by the more western members of our family: my mother, our cousins who had grown up in the States, my sister and myself. As the comments continued to come, my father and his siblings began to post as well. Something that does not usually occur in Chinese culture – speaking of negative events like deaths in the family – began happening. I remember sensing tension at the initial comments that were posted, which soon resolved as comments of love and fond memories were posted.
The details of the funeral are blurry to me. My sister and I had never experienced a Chinese funeral, we hadn’t even watched them on TV. The funeral was held in a large room near where my father worked. The streets leading to the funeral parlor were always lined with beautiful flower decorations, intricately woven together in perfect shape, arrangement and color combination. I had always admired them from car and bus windows, but this time it was different as they paved the way to our final goodbye to Yeh Yeh.
Stepping into the large auditorium, there were pews on either side of the entrance – just like in a Western wedding ceremony. The pews stopped halfway down the room. At the other end was a large machine that looked like a furnace. If I recall correctly, Yeh Yeh’s picture was there – a really nice picture of him in a brown suit before he’d lost some weight. My aunts and uncles (dad’s siblings) had all flown back to Hong Kong from the States and were lined at the door. My sister and I didn’t really know what to do. There didn’t seem to be one formal ceremony or eulogy like we’d seen in Western funerals. Instead, family members (who we could not always recall) came in to pay their respects. All the aunts and uncles were lined at the entrance to welcome guests. Guests would walk down the aisle and pay their respects to Yeh Yeh, bowing three times and then going to a seat.
I do wonder what happens during this time of sitting. Chinese people, in general, value the gift of time with each other. Not always the most expressive with words of affection, Chinese people demonstrate love for each other by spending time together with delicious food. Though unable to share in this food experience with Yeh Yeh, I wonder if this momentary lapse of time in the wooden pews before Yeh Yeh was a way to express love and affection. After a few moments, with a few tears running down the side of their faces, guests would stand up, return to the center, bow three times and then leave, shaking the hands of my uncles and aunties as they passed.
Though my sister and I didn’t understand the traditions and rituals very well, we loved Yeh Yeh and wanted to pay our respects. We were given a very important responsibility in the funeral, which was to feed (fake) money into the furnace as an offering of wealth and prosperity to Yeh Yeh in his place of rest. In a way, it was nice for us to have a job like this because it kept us entertained throughout the day and allowed us to feel like we were contributing. In all honesty, it was also fun to burn stuff.
At the end of the day, Yeh Yeh was cremated and his ashes returned home with us until we found a space for his final resting place. We placed him in a place of the house that faced the beautiful ocean – a view he loved to see and a place special to him as he was involved in the cargo trade. Today, he rests in a beautiful building facing the ocean – and if you look further beyond the water of the Hong Kong harbor, there sits the home we grew up in, being watched over by Yeh Yeh with love and blessing.
Memories from the branches of Fowler and Wong 