A Buddhist Funeral

As soon as Supijit picks us up, she tells us that her grandfather has just died. All her family is gathering that night at her grandmother’s house. Her two children are already there. Do we want to go? We express our condolences and say, of course, we’ll go with her.

She takes us to her house first to shower and change and relax a minute. I’ll describe the “shower” later. She lives in a small house on the grounds of the school where she teaches. The house has 2 stories and 2 rooms on each floor with a stairway in the middle. We sit at a table, drink water and talk for a while.

We wash up and change (after all we have been sleeping in the same clothes overnight on the train and all day in Ubon R. and on the bus). Then she drives to the village where her grandparents live. It’s about 30 minutes away. The rice fields along the way glimmer under the full moon.

She explains on the way that it isn’t a funeral service per se. She calls it a blessing for the house—to purge the house—to bring in good spirits after a death. Her grandfather was cremated and after the cremation, the family gathered for a remembrance of him at the temple. But tonight the Buddhist monks are coming to the house. Friends, family and neighbors will be there.

The chanting has already started when we arrive. Mostly men are seated on the floor of the big room. Some people are outside in a verandah-like area. That’s where we sit with Supijit. But she doesn’t really sit—she’s moving around getting things ready for the meal that follows.

At first I couldn’t tell who was chanting because no mouths were moving. From my position, I couldn’t see the monks—but later when they left, I counted 12. 12 monks dressed in saffron robes, from youth to old men. The chanting was in a repetitive cadence, fast then slow, over and over, no break. When it ended, monks left, everyone thanked them with prayer hands and bow, as is the Thai traditional greeting, coming and going. Lots of chatter. When the food came out, I realized where the women were—in the back cooking. Supijit says that the family has to do all the cooking when there’s a death in the family. Friends and neighbors come and eat, rather than bringing food over. The food comes out on trays. The family may have to cook like this for three days, she says, unless they are too busy and cut it short.

She made sure we had plenty to eat and then introduced us to her grandmother, other family members and the village council member.

Katie and I were truly tired that night but amazed at how much we had seen in one day. “It will take us a long time to write about all of this,” Katie said. And indeed it has. We are still several days behind in blogging, but we have limited access to the internet anyway. We’ll get back to you when we can. Return to "Venturing Eastward" if you're just catching up with us.