Kampua Talk

When majority of the world remember September, 11th as the day when terrorists hijacked a plane and piloted it into some buildings and killed many people in the USA, I’d remember this day forever as my father passed away on this day. He had chosen an easy date for us to remember him. What a thoughtful dad!

These few days, I’ve learnt a lot about the customs and traditions of Chinese funerals. Even though we are Catholic, we still observed some Chinese traditions. Not that we are pantang, the observation of the customs and traditions is a sign of respecting our roots as Chinese.

When a death occurs, a white cloth will be hung across the doorway of the house.

A gong will be placed on the left of the entrance if the deceased is male and right if female. However we did not do this. As Catholics, we only hung the white cloth and proceed to recite the Rosary that night.

However, according to the Chinese customs, all statues of deities in the house are covered with red paper so as not to be exposed to the body or coffin. Mirrors are removed from sight, as it is believed that one who sees the reflection of a coffin in a mirror will shortly have a death in his/her family. Of course, we don’t do all these.

As soon as I reached home from the hospital after sending my dad’s body to the motuary, I (all family members, for that matter) have to take off all jewelleries that we wore on our bodies. We are not allowed to wear red clothing as well, as red is the colour of happiness. Traditionally, children and grandchildren of the deceased did not cut their hair for 49 days after the date of death but this custom is usually only observed now by the older generations of Chinese. Well, I haven’t been cutting my hair since two weeks before Christmas last year, so another 49 days wouldn’t hurt

It is customary for blood relatives and daughters-in-law to wail and cry during mourning as a sign of respect and loyalty to the deceased. Wailing is particularly loud if the deceased has left a large fortune. Oh, we don’t do that. Of course, there were tears and crying but only at the level of macho crying (like how Adrian put it) and it lasted for 2 days only, not continuously.

So after the Rosary, I was asked to take out all my dad’s clothes. My brother and I each had to pick a cloth (shirt or pants) to be kept as remembrance. Then, a few pieces of his clothes was picked and all the pockets of the chosen clothes was cut off. These clothes would be stuffed at the side of the coffin to be ‘brought’ by my dad. I was told that the pockets were cut off so that he won’t be asking money from us.

By that time, the guys from the newspaper (See Hua and Sin Chiew) were already at my house writing the obituary (correct or not?) to be published in the Chinese dailies the next day. For reasons unknown, the lazy people from Borneo Post do not accept advertisement or news after 6pm so we couldn’t announce it through the (broken) English paper. Thanks to Borneo Post, a lot of our English-speaking friends (who can’t read Chinese) didn’t know about it and missed the funeral.

So that night, a lot of things had to be done. So many things so little time. I retired to bed around midnight but I knew it was going to be a long day the next day starting with coffin-shopping.