HW 48 - Family Perspectives on Care of the Dead

The first interview I conducted was with my sister, Stephanie.  Her interview was recorded onto a word document and can be viewed and downloaded at the link below:

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The second interview I conducted was with my mother, who requested that her name not be online.  Her interview was recorded onto a MP3 file.  You can download the MP3 file and listen to the interview at the link below: (Forewarning: My mother preferred to speak in Cantonese because it was much easier for her to answer the questions.  I will quote and translate the most interesting things she says in my analysis.)

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(If the bar where you can press play and listen to the interview does not show up immediately, please refresh the page and allow for it to buffer before pressing play again.)

Succinct Summary

I dreaded interviewing my family on their perspectives on the Care of the Dead because I didn’t want to relive any funeral stories they had, in fear of feeling guilty about not understanding the inevitable emotional hurt or suffering that came along with death rituals (funerals, memorials, wake, and annual visiting of the grave).  Despite my mere apprehension, I decided that evaluating and observing my family’s perspectives on death would allow me to better understand care of the dead practices and its underlying beliefs in Chinese culture, a culture that I have unfortunately not pursued as much as I should.  My mother, often mentioning her age as a reason for her beliefs, says,

“In Chinese culture, we have a belief.  The body and life start out a whole – one entire body.  If it starts out that way then it should end that way as well.  It should be buried as a whole because it started out a whole…Each dead body should be given a unit – a section – to have peace where his or hers family members and friends can visit.  Burial provides a safe permanence where a body will always have its place.  In cremation, the body is destroyed – it is not whole anymore.”

Cremation promises only ashes to be put in an urn – one that has no specific or permanent place on earth.  My mother reasons cremation gives the dead less significance and opportunity to be “with” the living in a safe place.  A safe place is important because it represents the dead body’s spirit and a guarantee of a good sleep. 

My sister, on the other hand, says that cremation doesn’t need to be looked at negatively because “to some people, the body is materialistic while the soul is the essence of the body…Any way of disposing of the dead can be considered a human intervention if someone looks at the way to care for the dead in a way that does not manifest love.”  Stephanie reasons that if we manifest love and have a desire to provide a seeing off for our dead loved ones, the act of disposing of the body is no longer a human intervention.  By the standards she defines a human intervention to require, human intervention is bad.

Analysis

            After reading over my mother’s most insightful thought about the body as a whole, I wondered to my self: “What does it mean to be whole?  Why is it important that we begin the same way and end the same way?”  I believe that my mom’s desire to have this consistency in the world of life of death – to begin the same and end the same – derives from her wanting to mitigate change.  By mitigate change, I mean that it allows for us to feel like the dead are still with us and their memories and life live on through us.  A whole can represent the physical form some may want to preserve because the original physical form allows us to feel the essence of the body, which once walked along with the living. Destroying a person’s original physical form is equivalent to destroying their nature – the experiences that they had.  The people in our society hold fast to that idea because we value memory.  Valuing memory goes hand in hand with protecting memory; therefore, burying the body as whole, however you may define it be, lets the dead leave and rest gracefully in a safe place.  My mother describes this safe place to be a nice resting area – one that is forever in the ownership of the dead.  To me, forever is a word that should not be used lightly because it carries a sort of high hope.  However, forever promises a more ungraspable desire than a materialistic one.  A gravesite – a unit paid for by the dead person’s family member – is a new home for the dead.

            Following my mother’s interview analysis, the beliefs behind my sister’s interview must now unfold.  I inform my sister of the assumption that maybe Neanderthals buried their dead simply because they exuded an awful smell and not because the living wanted to let the dead have an easy path towards the next step after life.  My sister responds with a certain disposition and says that burying the dead is surely a human intervention with a few exceptions.  While I marvel and let her thought marinate in my mind, I ask myself: “What qualifications must a human intervention fit?  When does an act become atrocious or beautiful?”  Some may say that to care for the dead without intentions of manifesting love is cruel but, it is an act that will benefit someone nonetheless and I believe that is certainly one of main goals in the infrastructure created to deal with death.  We bury the dead not only to allocate a place for them but also to help us cope with emotional turmoil.  Is it selfish to want to “intervene” in order to alleviate the pain of another?  In my opinion, intervention can be selfish.  I wonder that if the tears that splash on our faces on the days our loved ones are buried, are to help us or to show the dead we mourn.  My sister’s believes that if love finds its way into care of the dead practices, interventions are no longer bad or selfish.  Love is necessary in the process of dealing with the dead.  In light of this, I ask: “How much love can compensate for death?  When are actions dealing with the dead justified as necessary?”