What would foreigners think of the things used in Chinese funerals?

Foreigners have simpler funeral traditions compared to China.

Chinese funeral traditions are elaborate, solemn and ceremonial.

To understand what foreigners think of China's funeral traditions, we first need to understand Chinese funeral customs.

Lao Pan summarizes the table of funeral rituals

Small coffin: the living puts on the life jacket for the deceased and arranges the remains, and the life jacket must not be leather, because folklore says that if the deceased wears something leather in the coffin, then in the next life he will be reincarnated as an animal. Small coffin reflects our Chinese tradition of respect for the deceased. Reflects the essence of the dead in Chinese culture.

Appliances: life jacket

Mourning: after the deceased returned. The relatives present should report the funeral one by one, according to the generations in the family as well as the order.

Appliances: funeral stickers

Running to the funeral: after receiving the funeral report, friends and relatives attend the funeral of the deceased.

Appliances: Wreaths

Temporary Alter: commonly known as the spirit of suspension, the deceased will be placed in the spirit of the Hall for seven days, this is to prevent the medical "fake death", and to wait for distant friends and relatives to come to the funeral, for the deceased to send the last journey.

Appliances: spirit bed, spirit court

Wake: both for the deceased's relatives and friends dressed in mourning clothes, in the spirit of the Hall to take turns for the deceased wake

Appliances: mourning clothes

Da coffin: (the last side of the deceased's earthly body (the body) will be pushed into the incinerator.

Funeral and burial: funeral and burial is the most elaborate step in the funeral system, the old saying that the filial son to receive the streamer (cited soul streamer), the big branch of the road (cited souls), the funeral is "cited soul," in common parlance, that is, to send the soul of the deceased back to heaven, burial is the deceased's mortal body into the ground, the specific process is as follows:

1) the funeral team a full body of mourning clothes

The funeral team a full body of mourning clothes

With: the last side of the human body (the body pushed into the incinerator). p>① funeral team in mourning clothes, black car white sails in front of the road, the hearse carries the coffin to the burial site.

② arrived at the burial site, the eldest son holding the effigy back streamer walking in front of the coffin, the big branch (Feng Shui master) shouted: "the West is the right way, the gods guide ah ~" Funeral dragon set of people all the way to the cemetery to disseminate paper money (bribe roadside ghosts).

③After arriving at the cemetery, put offerings (apples, dumplings, wine, pastries) by the big branch (feng shui master) read the words to attract the soul:

"The West is the right way, all the gods guide, xxx died on x years x months x days in the Shenzhou x city x place, the deceased was a person of goodwill and charity before life, high morality, filial piety on the parents, under the superior children, and then asked the local city god, the earth public ground to attract the soul to be treated kindly. So I asked the local City God and the Tukongdi to guide the soul to be treated kindly! God blesses good people! Wild ghosts cannot invade and lonely souls cannot be disturbed! The people are finished, the immortals and gods bless the Western Paradise, and the way is smooth! Burial ~!"

4 (The mortal body is buried, the soul stays.) The relatives mourn and cry, and the winds of grief are strong! Eldest son, eldest daughter, children and grandchildren have been kneeling, the man lit a fire burning paper money, women cry the soul of the deceased to pick up more money, the big branch of the fire in front of the lone souls and wild spirits do not rush to grab the money. The fire burned out, funeral under the funeral finished, the soul left, dust to dust to earth. (write sad, are memories ...)

Appliances: (mainly) soul-attracting streamers, soul-attracting bells, paper money, paper people, offerings.

After a general understanding of traditional Chinese funeral customs and funeral paraphernalia, let's open up the world of the brain.

Into my four-dimensional brain hole, into the eyes of foreigners in the Chinese funeral.

Character Setting: Soul of the deceased (foreign)

Scenario Setting: Funeral

Perspective Setting: Perspective of the deceased

The eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, the breathing is slowly failing, the body temperature is gradually decreasing, the heart... Stopped beating.

My body was getting lighter and lighter, I floated in mid-air, and I saw an identical looking person lying on the hospital bed ......

Ah oh~ I'm dead.

I was an American who married and had children in China, where the pressure of competition was so great that I died of exhaustion trying to support my family.

Now I woke up, but it was my soul that woke up, well I died. I look at my corpse in the form of my soul... Still so handsome...

Ahhhhh!!!WHAT

What are my wife and kids doing? What kind of weird clothes are they putting on my corpse? Are they carrying my corpse to a tea house? And make-up, why don't they put on a mask?

Why am I not going to heaven yet? By the way this is China, under the control of the gods and goddesses, I'm temporarily worshipping the Monkey King.

How do you read the Buddhist scriptures? I'm not going to be able to get a good look at the whole thing, but I'm going to be able to get a good look at the whole thing, and I'm going to be able to get a good look at the whole thing! Where is this taking my body!

Oh, what a big room with a bed. Why didn't they just cremate me and put me on the bed?

It's hard to believe that Chinese fairy magic will bring me back to life! Fairy bed! The circle made of paper flowers around the bed is a Qiankun circle?

Three days later... （

I've been waiting here for three days, why haven't I been resurrected, my body is going to stink, are you going to resurrect a piece of imported stinky tofu?

Oops, there's a car coming, where's it going to take me again?

There's no way I'm going to float along...

The crematorium! It was at this moment that I truly realized that I was really going to disappear in this world...

My wife and children friends and family cried so sadly, alas, do not die really do not know, the original I am so good people.

Just cremated ...... A lifetime ah, is a handful of white soil, what is left?

Yo ho ho ~ this small urn is good, and mahjong box the same model, or my wife is good, know that I was born love to play mahjong.

My baby boy holding my urn, alas, blame the dad ah... Let you become a child without a father...

How is this still spreading yellow paper all over the sky, environmental awareness?

It's scary... I'm surrounded by a lot of lonely ghosts, they are crawling on the ground to pick up yellow paper, what is this yellow paper for?

Why is there a white flag on my son? Did Chinese soccer lose again?

I couldn't help but follow the white flag, there were wild ghosts on the roadside trying to catch me, but they were all scared away by a man who looked like a con man 63 with a brass bell (feng shui master), I was not under my control to follow the sound of the bell, it's amazing.

"The West is the right way, the gods will guide you" I understand Chinese, but I really don't understand the meaning of this sentence.

"The right way to the west" is to ask me to go back to the United States? Is it to summon the lost Malaysia Airlines?

"Guidance from the pig god"? Pigs? Is the Second Brother an American pig?

Here's my graveyard kinda posh, actually I've always gone for Marilyn Manson's black rock style.

After the little old man with the little bell recited a rap, my mahjong style urn was put into the ground, and I felt my soul getting lighter and lighter.

A ball of flame was set on fire in front of my grave, is this a "charcoal-roasted grave"?

The sky is strewn with yellow paper, my wife and children call me to pick up

money, what x 2! Could it be yellow paper? Well pick up!

Two old Chinese men floated down from the sky, two old men opened the door to the other world, I know I'm going to leave this place,

Farewell my loving wife, my loving children, my loving relatives, thank you for doing all these strange things for me, although I don't understand what you're doing, but you make my soul feel warm. What a beautiful world... I have no regrets.

Once upon a time... A foreign friend of mine, he saw the "paper man" placed outside the birthday store very curious, called the "paper man" for the Chinese art, but also to buy a gift to the Canadian mother, I heard to the heart of the heart surging out of a stream of old blood, foreigners like to curse their own mother?

I immediately like to explain to the "paper man" is to the deceased with, is in the funeral use of things, not art.

In the eyes of foreigners, Chinese funerals are solemn and mysterious, while in my eyes Chinese funerals are full of warmth, thoughts of the deceased, the sublimation of emotions and memories to remember, a person's heart stops beating, is it death? No, the real death of a person is when he is forgotten.