In between the training that I did for the PESAO staff and the training for 200 principals on conversational English, I spent a weekend at my homestead. I found out the day that I got home that one of the yaais (grandmothers) in the village had died.
Just before I left the US, my great aunt had died and so I had recently experienced a funeral in the US and I wanted to share about the differences between the rituals around death between Thailand and the US.
I had come come on the day that the woman had died and my host sister told me that the whole family would be spending the night at her house, or at a house on her family’s compound. In Thailand, extended families often live together, in different houses on the same property.She also told me the next day I would go over to the house as well and then we would all go to the wat or temple the day after.
Funeral Rites at Home
So in the morning, I went to the woman’s house. When we first got there, we went up in her house and sat around a sparkly, refrigerated coffin that she was inside and there were a number of monks that chanted and said blessings.
After the chanting, people went up to the box, lit incense, put money in a bowl and gave one of the family members some rice and paid their respects in general. There were lots of plastic wrapped boards with lots of different things that seem pretty emblematic of things people in Thailand need or use on them. After that, we went downstairs and I spent the day sitting around with all of the other villagers and eating a lot. There was bank of speakers set up and there was music playing almost the entire time. Lots of people came and talked to me and I think that the whole villages now knows that I am a vegetarian.
Funeral Rites at the Temple
The next day, we once again went over the family compound. I spent my morning entertaining some of the kids from the village. The day before I a little boy, about 4, brought over his dinosaur toys and I played with him so the second day he brought them again and found me to play with him. Lots of the other kids saw and wanted to play along with me as well. Around noon, I caught a ride to the wat with my host sister and we helped to set up for the people that would be attending the funeral. As the people arrived, I helped to put ice in cups for everyone to have some water or soda.
Everyone sat on mats on the floor and before the monks chanted again, lots of people, including me, went up to the casket and sprinkled water over her body. There was a photo of her when she was younger with the dates of her birth and death; she was 90 years old. The monks chanted and then there was what I gathered to be a eulogy of the woman. Then all the heads of the different families in attendance gave an envelope to the monks. After that, everyone was given a flower made out of palm leaves and nail clippers. I don’t know why I was given nail clippers.
Then some men who are not normally monks and are related to the woman, who had shaved their heads that morning and were wearing the orange robes, moved her casket over to where she would be burned. As they moved her, they threw out baht coins that had been wrapped in foil. Most wats have a building for this, but my wat is kind of under construction, so there are two stairways facing each other and in between the stairs they had piled a bunch of large logs about half way the height of the stairs. They put the casket, a simple wooden box painted white, on top and then put more logs on top and lit the kindling on fire. Then everyone put their flower made out of palm leaves on the fire.
Once the fire was lit and each person put their flower on the flames, most people left. I stuck around to help clean up and a lot of older women, including my host yaai, stuck around for another round of chants from the monks. After the chanting, we headed back to the family’s house for more food. After lunch, we went home.
Cultural Differences
I noticed one thing that is very different from the funeral that I attended in the States is that at the Thai funeral, there was no crying and few sad faces. There was very little discomfort around the dead body; my host sister did ask me when the fire was really catching if I was scared. I wasn’t scared so much as intrigued; this was not a process that I think I would ever seen in the States. I also did not hear much about the woman during the big gatherings and there was actually some groups gambling at the gatherings. But, it was very nice to see everyone in the village come together to support the family.
I just wanted to share some of the bigger cultural differences that are clearly visible with you all, dear readers. The experience also allowed me some time to reflect on the people in my life that are no longer around and remember them.