In this age of hyper-commercialization, even burying process has become a one-stop service like many others. Within this context, what happens with burial rituals and traditions, and even the process of grievance? Does it matter anymore whether we understand the rituals and traditions we do, or do these have become so commercialized as well that we no longer can tell whether they are real or hyper-real?
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My uncle passed away. It happened on early morning last Wednesday. When we went to his wake late that night after picking up my dad from the airport, his body was already deteriorating. His casket was closed soon after we arrived at the funeral house, after we were led through some set of traditional Chinese (Indonesian?) rituals which I knew nothing about. A worried thought overcame my mind as I blindly followed instructions from the guy in dark khaki uniform whose name tag pronounced him as Gunawan: What would happen when my generation, whose complete ignorance to all this rituals and traditions, took over?
As I went to my uncle’s wake night after night throughout the week until his cremation yesterday, folding papers to create different forms to be burned alongside my uncle, I tried to gain some information from Gunawan about the meaning of these folded papers. He said that the flat ones served as tokens for the evil spirits to let my uncle’s spirit passed easily into the next world; the rolled ones were the money he would need in the other world; while the ones he taught me to fold symbolized roofs of temples. When I asked why the roofs of temples, and where what about the bodies of these temples, he scoffed. But I found out later that he didn’t know the answer either. I asked him to teach me how to make the intricate lotus paper folding, but after teaching us the basics, he too had forgotten how to do it. So much for my attempt to learn about rituals and traditions, which would have been forgotten by the time my daily routine takes over again.
But apparently I need not worry about not knowing what to do with funerals when my generation eventually takes over. The funeral houses will take care of everything. My uncle’s whole burial process was fully organized by the funeral house. My uncle’s family only had to determine what type of burial they wanted (Buddhist, cremated), when they wanted to hold the flower and prayer night (Saturday, 9pm), when they wanted to leave for the burial ground (Sunday, 8am) and where to cremate him (Nirvana crematorium), all within the family’s budget.
The funeral house arranged for the deceased to be picked up from the hospital by an ambulance, provided the room, the casket, and an attendant (Gunawan) to lead through the chosen Buddhist rituals. On the flower and prayer night they even arranged for a group of Buddhist monk and social workers to lead the extended family, who only had to arrive at the predetermined time, through prayers which meanings only they understood. The same prayer group came again the next morning to lead the moving of the casket from the funeral house to the crematorium, with hired pallbearers, ambulance, truck, and traffic controllers all ready to help along the way. With such convenience, perhaps the hope was for the family to be able to focus more on commemorating the life of the deceased; or was it?
After more prayers and rituals at the crematorium, my uncle’s casket was put on a ceramic plate on an automated, fireproofed conveyor system that led it to the brick incinerator, while we stood beyond the enclosing tempered (showcasing) glass. Once the fireproofed steel door of the incinerator was closed, and the last of the cries and snivels subdued, we were told to sit and wait for two hours while my uncle’s body was cremated. Then out came water, snacks, fruits, and lunch boxes – which were soon consumed by my whole extended family over chatting, catching up, and even laughing out loud with one another. The funeral slowly turned into a family picnic to culminate in a boat ride.
Two hours later, the ceramic plate came out of the incinerator, with distinctly colored ashes (what I guessed as the remains of the casket, the flesh, and other things) and what’s left of my uncle’s still burning bones. Once the bones cooled down, my uncle’s family was handed giant tweezers – with which they could pick up my uncle’s bones, place them on steel pans, and hand them over to the attendants who grounded and placed the bones’ ash inside a small red sack, while the remainders of the ash were shoveled into bigger plastic sack. Throughout this process, the rest of us watched the rituals through the now open tempered glass doors: a showcase of cremation process, quite detached from emotions.
Several minutes later, we were all led to walk towards the conveniently located port from which we took a boat to the open sea, where my uncle’s ash was to be scattered. The precise moments and locations for when to throw papers, flowers, my uncle’s ash, and (take a deep breadth, environmentalists) the plastic and cardboard containers into the sea throughout the boat trip were announced by another man – who was telling us what to do as if he was reciting off directly from that memory strand of his.
By the end of that trip, no one was crying anymore. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the rather long bereavement process, or because the whole experience was just so surreal that we became detached from the fact that the whole procedure that was supposed to commemorate my dear uncle’s life had been conducted by orders of people who were strangers to my uncle.
My uncle was the second to go in my mom’s side of the family. Last year, another uncle passed away. He was buried the Catholic way, which was organized by the same funeral house. May they rest in their respective heavens, while we think about whatever will happen to cultures, traditions and rituals in this instant, convenient, and commercial age.
