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| A family's tribute to their father - June 29, 2006 | | Date Created: Jun 29, 2006, 11:52 PM |
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Above photo: A monk shaves Prae's brother Uee's head on the eve of their father's cremation.
Less than four days after I’d first met her father in the ICU of a hospital in her hometown, Prae called me on a Friday afternoon to tell me that he had finally succumbed to bone cancer. While certainly it was a relief in many respects that his suffering was over, and I think Prae had finally come to the conclusion that the inevitable would be for the best, there is no way to prepare for the event when it happens.
I already had planned to fly out to Ubon Ratchatani, where her family lives, on the 6:30 a.m. Saturday flight, and so Friday night, I packed every white article of clothing I own, for white is the mourning color here, which, I noted later under the sun, is eminently more practical than black in this heat.
By the time my flight arrived, the arrangements were already made and in fact under way. Buddhist funerary rites are very drawn out, in this case almost six days. Interestingly, however, I am told that this is very short as far as funerals go. In most cases it is seven days, and in the case of royalty, all the rites surrounding a funeral before the cremation can last a year.
In Prae’s father’s case, I am told the rituals were fairly simple. His coffin, a dark wooden box covered in gold ormolu ornamentation with classical Thai themes, lay in the downstairs open room of Prae’s family’s house.
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Her house, like many houses in towns in Thailand, is not much like a house as we think of it. It is a four-story building, its ground floor built for the purpose of commercial space. In this main ground-floor room, which has large folding metal doors that slide open on two sides, the coffin sat surrounded by white flowers that resembled mums. To the right of the coffin was an easel with her father’s photo, its frame draped with black chiffon. In front of the coffin was a little table that contained a lit candle and oil lamp and a pot filled with sand in which at least one fat stick of incense burned at all times. The candle and oil lamp were lit immediately after her father’s death to light his way in the afterlife, which Buddhists apparently believe is quite dark for the departed in the days after his spirit has left this set of flesh and bones. In front of the little table was a round decorative pillow that probably has a name and is not meant for sitting.
On my arrival, I was to wai to Prae’s father by lighting an incense stick pressed between my hands as if in prayer, thinking thoughts of respect for him, bowing all the way down to the pillow. Then I placed the lit incense stick into the pot filled with sand to let it burn.
This room was the main place of action 24 hours a day for the next several days. Prae’s brothers slept on the floor here to make sure the candle, lamp and large incense stick remained lit.
Next to the coffin was a dais with a small sort of altar with an image of the Buddha. There was room enough on the dais for four monks, and there were four square rugs for them to sit. Behind the rugs were four “fans” on stands that are used as part of the chants the monks perform.
Each morning around 8 and then again around 11, and each evening about 7, four monks would come to perform a service, to which friends and family would come as their time and level of respect permitted.
I had not planned to spend the entire time there. In fact, I had a return plane ticket back to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon. I had anticipated that I would fly out again on Wednesday for the cremation and final service. However, soon after my arrival, I realized that even in the distant position in which I stood as the farang boyfriend of the youngest daughter, I was obliged to stay for the duration. Moreover, however, I found that Prae’s family wanted me to stay, and I was flattered by that. I was invited, in fact, to sleep there with Prae’s brothers on the mat-covered cement floor, and to be invited to stay under the same roof, even if it meant painful nights and stiff mornings of sleeping on the floor, meant that I was considered part of the family. To leave and then return was really not thinkable at that point.
And thus began a few of the most fascinating days I have ever spent.
As opposed to my brief trip out the weekend before to visit Prae’s dad in the hospital, her young nieces and nephews were not so terrified of the farang this time. On my first day several of the 10 total trapped me, each holding up different objects, saying, “What’s this?” They are beginning to learn English at a young age, and here was a walking dictionary, except when it came to some items, and I don’t think any of them ever did understand that a piece of rusty hardware and a red silk Chinese item with fringe could both be a thingamajig. Nor did they bother to learn the proper pronunciation of thingamajig.
I made fast friends with Prae’s nephew Chian, who thought it was the funniest thing in the world that when he poked me, I would go, “Beep!” What fun farangs can be! They go “Beep!” when you poke them! I soon grew rather tired of saying “Beep!” and being poked, but it was nice to bond with another one of Prae’s family, even if he was small enough to sit on my back while I did push-ups.
While my level of communication with the rest of her family was largely limited to similar monosyllabic conversation, I did get to know them better, and they me.
It became my job to serve the monks drinks when they arrived. This is a somewhat complicated process to do it with the respect monks deserve. They would arrive in the morning, and I would have a tray prepared with four containers of water, four glasses of ice and four Pepsi bottles. One of Prae’s brothers would carry in the tray, and we would both get down on our knees and shuffle toward the lead monk, sitting as monks do on his rug on the 18-inch-high dais. I would wai, hand him each item with both hands, wai again, shuffle on my knees to the next monk and repeat the process.
Prae’s sister helpfully explained to me the different ways to wai, depending on whom I am wai-ing to. For an equal or lesser person, one’s hands come together with fingertips about chin high. This is the equivalent of a brief casual handshake. For an elder person to whom you are supposed to show more respect, your hands come together with your thumb tips about chin or mouth high. And for a monk or royalty, your thumbs are in the top of the mouth or nose range with a much more pronounced bow. I got better at wai-ing during these few days. I’ve never met so many people and at the same time shaken fewer hands. But it is something I still feel very self-conscious about doing. It was interesting to see how Prae’s brothers and sisters-in-law were doing their best to ingrain wais and politeness into the toddler-aged children. Anytime I handed the kids anything, an adult would prompt the kids to wai and say “Khop khun khrup!” (Thank you!). Same as in America, but with the addition of a wai that was much better than my own.
During the morning visit of the monks, they would fill their alms bowls with food to take back to the temple to share with the other monks. And they would also eat their breakfast. Depending on their denomination -- and I know that can’t be the correct term -- monks eat only once or twice a day, and they do not eat again after noon. In the early morning all over Thailand, it is a very common sight to see monks walking on their alms rounds. For someone to donate food to them earns the donor “merit,” and monks’ existence is based entirely on the generosity of others.
They would have their breakfast and do their chants in the ancient language called Pali. I really have no idea what the content of the chants was, but it is rather mesmerizing to listen to. I normally did this listening from the chairs lined up just outside the house, where friends and family would come sit for the services. Inside, there was no furniture, I realized that I would never make a very good Buddhist simply because I am physically incapable of sitting on my knees.
After the monks ate, breakfast would be served on the floor. Meals are eaten truly in the family style with four or five different dishes served on a tray, and people all grabbing usually with just their hands from the different dishes. This being northern Thailand, sticky rice with “jow” -- a type of wildly varying sauce made with fish sauce, chilies, tamarind and any variety of other unidentifiable ingredients -- are the foundation of almost all meals. Jow can be very fishy tasting, if it is made with the fermented fish sauce, or it can be smoky if it is made with dried chilies. In any case, it is usually very spicy. I have found lately that my taste buds have almost fully adjusted to Thai spices, and I can match almost anyone mouthful for mouthful with even the hottest dishes.
The manner of eating is this: You grab a wad of sticky rice, roll it into a ball and dip it into the jow. Or you use the ball of sticky rice almost as a utensil, picking up bits of other dishes and popping it into your mouth with the ball of rice. In this regard, you get full very quickly, but you get all the flavor of the various dishes, which could range from grilled chicken or pork to fish soup to pork skin or bamboo shoot salad.
Apparently, Prae’s mother was constantly concerned that I couldn’t eat their food, and I am hoping I made a good impression by trying everything and enjoying the good majority of it. I have surprised myself in some of the things I have discovered I enjoy -- fish maw for instance. Here’s something that sounds like the most foul things I can imagine, yet Chinese fish maw soup is absolutely wonderful, and you’d never know you were eating fish guts.
After breakfast, activities would vary. I did my best to stay out of the way or be helpful where I could. One of these ways was helping fold hundreds of sheets of gold foil paper, which were rolled into a shape that represented money on Chinese culture. These stacks of paper would subsequently be burned in what is known as the kong tek ceremony that has its roots in the famous terra cotta armies unearthed at the emperor’s tomb in China. The Chinese believed that vast armies would help their emperor in the afterlife. Historians believe that before the idea of terra cotta armies being buried with the dead, real humans were buried. As that ultimately proved impractical, effigies of real-life things were buried. And later, as that became too impractical and expensive, the idea came about to burn things that were representative of the real object. And so Prae’s father set off in his next life a wealthy man.
Each evening Prae’s family would burn some of the folded paper that represented money, but the real conflagration came on the day of the cremation ceremony. Before that, the family gathered all the paper items representing the comforts of this life: a paper house, a paper car, cell phone, watch, credit card, plane ticket, servants. There is actually an industry devoted to making such items. Prae tells me that the paper house, which was about the size of Barbie’s Malibu Dream House, cost about 4,000 baht -- roughly US$100.
They piled all this in the side yard and lit it on fire while walking around the fire, beating the ground with sticks. Prae tells me that this latter action was to scare ghosts away who would try to steal the money and other things while it is being transferred to the rightful owner.
She has told me enough things like this that I now know enough not to burst out laughing. Compared to the set of beliefs in the culture I was raised, they are simply so preposterous, so incredibly different from anything I can imagine, that I initially cannot comprehend anyone could seriously believe it. But then I think about it again, and I realize that to her, when I describe things like a casket showroom, or when she hears the story of a virgin giving birth to the son of God, she must think them equally bizarre.
Mornings somehow went quickly, and it seemed it was always time for the monks to return for lunch and another session of chanting. This would go generally as the mornings went, and I had more opportunity to practice my wais and serving techniques to apply them when the crowds came for the evening services. As many as 75 people would show up to pay their respects in the evening. The monks would come again, and after the service, it was my job to serve water and soup to the guests. I was the only Westerner there throughout, and apparently they thought it was awfully funny to see me in that role. But I enjoyed being of help and helping clear the dishes and empty cups.
Things went pretty much along these lines until Tuesday night, the night before the cremation. At that point, a monk came to shave two of Prae’s brother’s and one of her nephew’s heads. It is customary for a son to become ordained as a monk for as little as a day for his father’s funeral. Prae tells me now -- a week or so later -- that one brother will remain a monk for a month. It is during a time of year in which monks choose a temple at which to remain for the duration of the rainy season, and he will stay a monk for this period. Her other brother has chosen to remain in the robes for four months. I do not know why he chose this timeframe in particular, but both will stay apart from their families and live as monks in the temple for as long as they have decided. Doing this after a death earned themselves and the departed one’s spirit merit and will help that spirit be more successful in subsequent lives. Prae’s nephew, I should mention, is back to his old self, sans his hair and eyebrows, however.
The morning of the cremation, the two brothers and Prae’s nephew rose about 3:30 to go to the temple to become ordained. When they returned, I paid them the respected of any monk and served them drinks as I had done with the other visiting monks. Prae’s nephew got a kick out of this, but he did not like it when he ran to his mother with his civilian clothes, and she backed away from him. Monks are to have no contact with women; women may not even directly hand a monk something, or vice versa. Chai was a little put out by this aspect of his saffron robes.
The morning of the cremation started out similarly to the other days. On this day, Prae and her brothers and sister wore natural cotton smocks and sort of bandanas that are the uniform of mourning. Prae and I had shopping to do: We went to the market to buy flowers and a bunch of food: a pig’s head, steamed ducks, a huge round of doughy sweet bread, steamed Chinese buns -- a bunch of things that seemed rather odd to me. Later, I would see that these were for the Chinese part of the ceremony, when a whole feast is laid before the coffin, the different foods required by the tradition of the ritual.
This service took place in the late morning with the assistance of someone from the Chinese temple in town. After that came lunch, and then it was time for the processional to what Prae calls the Jungle Temple. This is a temples about three miles outside of town that is really in a jungle setting. It is a beautiful peaceful place that contains a main building or rustic simplicity. It is a Spartan building of unpainted cement with a corrugated iron roof. It is devoid of ornamentation, except for inside, where in one wall is painted the bodhi tree, under which Siddhartha Gotama attained enlightenment and became a Buddha. And under that painting sits a perhaps 6-foot tall gilded image of the Buddha.
The coffin was carried inside, having been transported in a truck bedecked with all the wreathes of flowers sent by friends and family that led a processional of cars that was completely familiar to my idea of a funeral.
Almost two dozen monks sat on a dais before the image of the Buddha, and close friends and family sat on the floor inside the building. The majority of guests sat in chairs outside in the shade beneath trees.
The service, again in Pali, lasted about an hour, and then the coffin was carried in one last processional to the open-air crematorium. It was at this point, I was beginning to question my presence there. Here was the first real sign of sadness I’d seen in members of Prae’s family as the casket was lifted to the 6-foot-tall concrete block platform flanked by two sets of concrete stairs. At the top of this structure, there was a recessed area into which the coffin was placed. Below this, it seems, was the means of ignition for the fire.
When the coffin was in place, the lid was removed by one so the family could have a last look. At this point, the candle that had been kept burning all week lit the kerosene and wood beneath the coffin. The amount of smoke at first made me think this was going to be an awful, stomach-turning sight accompanied by that distinctive smell. Strangely, however, it was a rather exhilarating end not only to a ceremony but to a life. Here in front of us was the very concept of ashes to ashes. From a Buddhist standpoint, Prae’s father was offering a valuable lesson: that the body of this life was simply flesh and bone, that the spirit would live on and that the body was no longer of use.
I was photographing all of this as it was happening, and I have often found as a reporter that having that camera or even a notepad and pen filter what I am witnessing can help me cope with what I normally might turn away from as a casual observer. I was counting on my camera doing that that day, and I was particularly glad when Prae’s family specifically asked that I photograph all the events surrounding the funeral, mainly because I thought I might need the camera as that filter. But interestingly, what I felt was a sort of peace -- not in myself, but in the minds of those in attendance. There, in that green clearing in the jungle where the smoke hung in the air was the very natural act of a body returning to nature taking place. It is more immediate and more public than burying a coffin in the ground, but it is the same in the end.
Overhead, a butterfly circled the clearing. It was one of those butterflies with black velvety under wings and iridescent blue top wings. Before then I had only seen that type of butterfly pressed between glass and sold at a souvenir stand. Butterflies are the symbol of Hospice in the U.S., and if I remember correctly, this is because some believe the spirit is carried to heaven by butterflies. I like that thought very much, and I liked it a lot more, seeing the dazzling shiny blue of those wings juxtaposed with the black undersides fluttering from tree to tree, somehow as if watching knowingly the scene below. |
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| Above photo: Prae's niece and nephew pay their respects to their grandfather. |
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