Taiwanese Funeral

Well, to be honest, I myself thought that this blog had come to its end with my previous post, but I've decided to include one final chapter.  This is because last week, I witnessed a part of Taiwanese culture I hadn't seen before, and one that really blew my mind...  that is, the Taiwanese funeral.

A few weeks ago, my host father's mother died.  She was 94 years old, and although I had never met her (she lived in another city from the one I live in in Taiwan), it was still tough to see my host family go through the hard time.

Last Friday, my host family took me to the city of Tainan for her funeral, which took place in the house she lived in... in fact it wasn't really in the city of Tainan, but more on the outskirts of town, in a more rural setting.  My family explained to me how this funeral was a very traditional ceremony, unique to the area, and that in Taipei it would be something different, and even in the nearby city of Kaohsiung, it would probably differ as well.

The ceremony began in the backyard of the one story house, underneath some trees and an awning that had been set up.  Under the awning, there was a table, with a lot of flowers on it, as well as three white statues of buddhas, sitting in lotus position.  As I looked on, five or six women got down on their forearms and knees, while wearing cloths over their heads, and began crawling towards the table very, very slowly.  The woman in front held a microphone, and as the women slowly made their progress across the concrete, she half sang, half wailed into the mike.  I should add that the entire ceremony was conducted in Taiwanese, not Chinese.  In Taiwan, when older people speak with each other, they almost exclusively use Taiwanese, especially in the southern parts of the island.  Anyway, the women continued moving slowly to the table, and finally, after around half an hour, reached their destination, about 20 feet from the place they began.  I believe that the casket containing the body of the deceased was behind the table, but I'm not actually sure.

This was the first part of the funeral.  For the second part, we moved out onto the street (interestingly, wedding  celebrations also take place in the street in rural Taiwan), and under a tent that had been set up, where we sat down.  At one end of the tent, there was another table with flowers, a picture of my host father's mom, and another, larger white buddha statue.  Everyone sat down, with the family of the deceased closest to the table, wearing some kind of traditional clothes over their normal everyday clothes.  Then a man began to speak Taiwanese (sadly, I still don't understand Taiwanese, still just trying to focus on Chinese...) and he began to introduce groups of people that would come up to the table to pay their respects.  It pretty much went down like this:  the man would announce a group, they would come up, and one person from the group would take a stick of incense from the man, hold it between their two hands, bow toward the table three times, and give it back to the man.  Each group was a sort of representation, perhaps from families, or companies... there was a group from my rotary club present.  After each group paid their respects, the funeral was over.  I was very glad to have this experience before I left Taiwan.

Now that I've written this post, I may as well inform you on some things that have been going on. in the past months that I haven't blogged about.  In May, I had two big trips.  The first one was a school organized trip to Korea.  Going to another country in Asia was a great experience.  New food, new language, new everything, it was really special.  Sadly, I was not able to meet up with my fellow exchange student Calina, but alas, it simply wasn't meant to be.

I also had a rotary organized trip around the island of Taiwan.  It was extremely fun, because all of the other exchange students were there, and it was pretty much a great bonding experience.  Some highlights were going to the top of Taipei 101 building, visiting the famous national palace museum, seeing Taroko Gorge, and having lots of fun on long bus rides.

Well, this will most likely be the last installment of "A Year in Taiwan", thanks all for reading along with me through the year!  It has been a really great exchange, full of marvelous food, places, music, experiences, and most importantly of all, people.  I have no idea how to describe it...  I can already hear people back home asking me "how was your year?", and I think I'm going to have a hard time succinctly summing it up...  but then again, that's the way it ought to be!

Thanks again for reading,
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