One more quick Taiwan post while I am stuck at the airport.
One of the very important things Mr. A wanted to accomplish in Taiwan was visiting his ancestors’ graves. He wanted to go to his maternal grandmother’s grave (who he knew personally) as well as visiting his paternal grandparents’ grave. Well, I am saying “grave” but there is no grave, at least not any more.
Learning about death rituals was one of the more interesting things that happened in Taiwan. When someone dies, traditionally they are buried in a grave like this:
The graveyard we visited was crazy overgrown. Mr. A’s uncle said that every year before the grave sweeping ceremony day, the government comes and burns down all the weeds so people can get to the grave and clean it together with their families. They have to do it together so no one is being sneaky and getting extra blessings.
You can see similar grave dotting the hillsides in Taiwan and China. There is a half circle thing with a mound on top. The casket they are in is made of wood and it has a hole drilled in it to facilitate the decomposition of the flesh.
After 10 years, all the meat is gone and then they crack open the casket and then they remove the bones. (I found this quite shocking!) This is what the casket looks like after 10 years. Pretty decomposed.
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This is a random tomb in a graveyard, not Mr. A’s family’s grave. I asked his uncle why they just left it there and he said Chinese people are dirty by nature and they don’t clean up after themselves. (More on that in a later post, if I remember.)
They take the bones out and then traditionally, they would put them in a big urn and bury them again. Maybe in the same grave. This is a traditional urn that was once used, but was abandoned now.
Now, more often people put the bones into government-sponsored mortuaries or whatever you would call them. The above graves can now be reused by someone else, I guess, because graveyard space in Taiwan is at premium. (The bones from this urn were probably moved to a high-rise mortuary, speculated Mr. A’s uncle.)
We visited two of these high rise mortuaries. At one, you use a credit card thing to pull up the right dead person’s image. At the other, we used an assigned number Mr. A’s dad gave us.
It pulls up pictures of the dead people. In this case, this is a granfather and his two wives.
Then, you take incense and ask for the blessing of the buddha who watches over the dead people. Then you give an incense/pray to the gods of Prosperity, Longevity and Wealth (or at the other one, the God of the Earth). Then you do your ancestor worship with another stick of incense.\
It was unclear to me exactly what I was supposed to be praying or asking for, but it was a nice ritual nevertheless. You can also give an offering of food to the ancestors to eat or spirit money while you are there.
I think these boxes are where the bones are stored.
