Funeral Cultural Differences between East and West
With the rapidly challenging world, people through the world have found it increasingly neceary to minimize the rate of misunderstanding due miscommunication in their contacts with another.Everything is relative, cultural difference being no exception.Culture, as the total pattern of human behavior and its products, oversteps geographical limits and historical conditions in many ways, and it is characterized by its strong penetrativene and fusibility.The advancement of the globalized economy and the rapidity and ease of modern communication, transportation, and ma media have resulted in an ever increasing exchange between cultures, unprecedented
in
scale,
scope,
and
speed.Consequently, an increase in universality and a reduction in difference between cultures is an inevitable trend.It is no surprise to see phenomena characteristic of one culture existing in another.As a result, some people even fear that the world will become a dull place when all the different nationalities behave exactly alike.Neverthele, the “cultural sediment” formed through long-range accumulation is not to be easily removed, and the cultural tradition handed down from generation to generation shows great consistency and continuity.The cultures of different regions and nations still have their own distinctive peculiarities, and therefore significance still needs to be attached to the study of the individualities of different cultures against the background of their universality.
I will talk about the funeral cultural difference between Chinese and western.If life is a trip, funeral is the end of the long journey.Death for people who believe in reincarnation does not mean the end of life, but the conversion of life.In other world .Funeral is to put the soul of the deceased to the underworld.The funeral ceremony refers to the etiquette of living deal with the deceased, and it is considered the last step of one’s whole life.When original human-being was in the world, they had a problem how to deal with the bodies.This is the beginning of funeral.Archeologists proved that the earliest original funeral appeared in China about 20,000 years ago.We can say the funeral is the oldest ceremony in human history.
People‘s life is limited .Funeral ceremony symbolizes the end of human’s life journey in the world.The activities we carry out around the deceased show many aspects of the real world.These activities have a lot of very close connections with people’s religion believes, ethical notions, national consciousne, customs, even the scheme of society scheme directly or indirectly.Different cultural backgrounds and religions cause the different funeral customs.China and the English speaking countries all have log stories.It’s very difficult to show their funeral customs comprehensively and exactly.
In this thesis, the author will introduce the different funeral ceremonies customs, and then search the root of these differences by comparing their different customs.
To Chinese people, death means the emancipation from earthline.If people die in the house peacefully, when he/she is extremely old, we call his/her funeral ‘white occasion’.As a very admirable way of death that one’s life ends at home without pain and disease is people’s long-cherished wish of lifetime and it’s also the glory of the family.
Funeral preparation is ready shroud, coffin and for the dead.In China it’s very important and formal.There is a lot of custom taboos in this step.T he shroud is generally made from cotton.Nobody will like his/her shroud made by fur or silk, because Chinese believe that furs can make people into animals in the other life.Silk is not used to make shroud for it’s Chinese pronunciation ‘duan’ which means bad for the death’s children.The coffin is divided into different grades according to the hardne of the timber, the harder the better.
A prerequisite for the implementation of the funeral, obviously, we must determine the person is dead.In China, people will cotton on the person’s nostrils to test whether or not people die.I t is named a fine cotton in The Book of Rites.A fine cotton is much accurate than directly testing by hand and show respect for the deceased.If relatives were sure the person had been dead, everyone started crying.Crying means starting the funeral ceremony.In some place of China, especially in rural, people always open the roof tiles to wish the death go heaven.
At the central plains region, it is bathed in his deathbed.Then put shroud on for him before he death.Medium civil funeral have “停灵”customs ,continued for three days, five days or seven days, it shows relatives look forward to the resurrection of the deceased, set aside enough time to the escape soul can return to when there is physical dependence.
Western funeral rituals and customs are eentially religious funeral
rites.
Western
people
advocate “individual-based” and “individual-centered”, so people focus on resettlement of the deceased “soul” at the funeral.Father of repentance to him.This is also o hospice, so that the dying people will get correct view of the death of the deceased, and get out of the fear of death.At death, under the auspices of Father give the deceased corpse washing, dreing, religious meaning of his sins are washed away, clean see God after the priest want to pray.
Chinese cemeteries are generally located on hillsides since this is thought to improve Fengshui(geomantic omen ).The higher a grave is located, the better.At the graveside, when the coffin is taken down from the hearse and lowered into the ground, all present must turn away.Family members and other relatives throw a handful of earth into the grave before it is frilled.After the funeral, all of clothes worn by the mourners are burned to avoid had luck aociated with death.After the coffin is buried, the keeper of the cemetery will also offer prayers to the deceased.Family members and relatives are presented with a red packed(A sign of gratitude from the deceased’s family, and the money in it must be spent).A white towel is also a sign of gratitude although it is also used by funeral guests to wipe away perspiration.The eldest son of the deceased will retrieve some earth from the grave to put into an incense holder, and the deceased will be worshipped by the family at home using an ancestral tablet.
Western funeral is religious funeral.The customs of western countries’ are influenced by their religions.Western funerals mainly pray for the deceased, wish souls ascend to heaven as soon as poible.Christians thought people should give the deceased’ soul need to be quiet after death ,so western funeral customs are simple and enmity.Confucian established the Chinese traditional funeral rites.I n traditional Chinese culture, the soul is immortal; it’s attached the gods, worshiped in the Temple.Later, the introduction of Buddhism, bring the “six reincarnation, reincarnation Health care “and other concepts.At the same time, the Chinese local religion Taoism put forward the concept of Hell.Chinese people mixed these different believe together, and formed Chinese funeral customs-the Confucian tradition as the main body, the convergence of Buddhism and Taoism’s funeral rites.
Today ,the globalization gives us much more chances to get in touch with foreigners than ever before .When people different areas communicate with each other, their different cultural backgrounds may cause misunderstanding.As two oldest cultures, Chinese and Western culture both have their own cultural characteristics.Though their boundaries have been not so clear after many years mingling, people need to know the others’ national characteristics still, especially when take part in foreigner’s funeral ceremony.
As the last step of human’s life journey, funeral ceremony has its different status and meanings in each areas.We search these differences through searching the different customs of funeral ceremonies.By comparing these differences and their roots, people can understand the senses of worth and the cultural backgrounds of people in different countries.It will help us to avoid misunderstanding in croing-cultural communication.
