Kate Goes to a Funeral

I had the opportunity to go to a Thai funeral and while the idea is the same as an American the ceremony is very very different. The Thai funeral can last anywhere from 3-7 days depending on the wealth of the family. The funeral I went to lasted 3 days and it was for the mother of one of the teachers at my school. It was an unexpected death but they threw everything together very quickly.


Outside the deceased house large tents are set up and chairs are arragned for everyone in the village. This picture doesn't show it well be there were well over 200 people sitting outside the small house.

The coffin looks like it is ready for Christmas and is air conditioned!!


The monks come and chant for the dead.



After the monks leave everyone takes a turn lighting an incense and "praying" for the dead. This is my friend Ni.


At the end everyone eats and drinks and is in amazingly good spirits. At this funeral not ONE person cried. Another volunteer heard that there are certain days of the week that a Thai person will cry, maybe this funeral just fell on the wrong day of the week, or maybe they are just happy for the dead to start a new life.

Finally, one thing that EVERY funeral has is gambling. Probably why most people attend the funeral is because at the end almost everyone sits down to gamble. Technically this is illegal in Thailand (because the money has a picture of the King on it) so I couldn't take more pictures but I couldn't believe how many people were playing games or how much money was being passed around.



The next day everyone gathered again to take the body to get cremated. I missed the ceremony because a nap was calling my name but I was watching the TV show LOST and there was an episode where it shows a picture of a "Thai cemetery" and I am here to tell you that they are wrong. Most Thai people are cremated when they die, I should work for LOST.