Ken Dobson's Queer Ruminations from Thailand
Search this site
  • Life in Thailand
  • Queer Issues in Thailand
  • Queer Christian Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Stories

What do you do with the corpse? 

11/20/2013

3 Comments

 
Picture
After all my years in Thailand I still believe one of the biggest culture differences between here and home (the USA) is what happens when somebody dies.  The anthropologist in me wants to share the gory details with you, but the Internet communicator says, "Keep it short and to the point."

The point is this: In Thailand when someone dies in the village the whole village is involved from the washing of the body to the gathering of the ashes after the cremation.  


Death is an undeniable reality of life. Everything is passing.   In the USA, at least in the cultural mainstream in the Midwest where I grew up as officiated at hundreds of funerals, the emphasis is on remembering deceased persons as they were and as the survivors prefer to remember them.  The body is handled and arrangements are "undertaken" by professionals out of sight and as far from
sensibilities as possible.

Nothing could symbolize this more clearly than how the body is presented before it is disposed of.  A village funeral usually includes nights of chanting and a sermon by a Buddhist priest.  On the final night the body is situated in a wooden coffin on the cart on which it is to be moved to the cremation grounds.  The coffin is covered with flowers, as in the USA, but there the similarity ends.  The cart is enclosed in thousands of little colored lights, many of them blinking in wave-like patterns.  The deceased
is being sent away with the highest honors the village can muster.

By contrast, the typical wake in Illinois is muted, pastel and subdued. The corpse is made to look as "natural" as possible, as if merely asleep. The casket is meant to look as comfortable as possible for the sleep may be a long one.  All of this is reinforced by a religious emphasis on the transition that is taking place.

These are two very different concepts of death.  Neither is better than the other.  Neither is how things will be a few generations from now. The point is that cultures differ. That's the point.

3 Comments
Don link
11/21/2013 05:54:18 am

Im thinking that there are few examples in the USA where the bodies are filled with preservatives in the home of the deceased. However in hundreds of funerals where I officiated, the process was to invite the health-related official to come in and do the job through transfusion of fluids.

A further observation was in funeral pires. I was on several occasions rightly singed by the lighting of the pire. The wrong kind of fuel on the fire and the candle they put in the hands of the officiation clergy person definitely sends the loved one off with a bang.

Reply
Ken link
11/21/2013 06:49:40 am

Cremations in the USA are likely to be more sedate, not even starting until all the mourners have departed.

Reply
gun range tampa link
11/23/2013 01:55:51 am

Super post. I hope within a short time we will get more post like this nice post.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Rev. Dr. Kenneth Dobson posts his weekly reflections on this blog. 

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2023 Rev. Dr. Kenneth Dobson