Paper Boats and Mercedes: Lessons From a Taoist Funeral

A Western son-in-law’s journey through the elaborate, theatrical, and deeply moving ritual of a Hong Kong goodbye

Photo by Stefano Huang on Unsplash

My father-in-law’s Taoist funeral was quite literally a rite of passage as the ceremony celebrates the passing of the living soul into the afterlife. Expected as a family member to take part as a celebrant, I passed further into my adopted family and the unique and quietly wonderful culture of Hong Kong.

An Auspicious Date and Plato’s Cave

When Pappa died after a long illness, it was not unexpected. At 85, his metabolism was so slow that his stomach cancer grew very slowly, and he seemed quite well, eating generous servings of dim sum, until his hospitalization and rapid decline. His funeral was delayed because of the great demand for funeral facilities for the first ceremony in Hong Kong and the second one at the gravesite in his hometown in China. It was further necessary to find an auspicious date for these events.

Even before the funeral date was set, the preparations had begun. Like an inmate in Plato’s Cave, I received mental glimpses of these preparations. The family, including me, had to get white suits, shoes, and socks to wear during the ceremony. They also ordered replicas of some things Papa valued or would need in the other world he was being prepared to join. More than making us comfortable with his passing and saying goodbye, it was about making sure that the deceased would be happy and comfortable in his new life.

Stepping Inside

The event was held at the funeral place or “funeral parlour”, as we call it in my culture, but there are only superficial similarities to what I have experienced at the few funerals I have attended. This place is a large building with many large rooms, including the one we used, situated in a funeral district with numerous other similar, I would guess, facilities and numerous small shops selling the associated accoutrements like all-white clothes and the piles of ceremonial paper, replica bank notes, and things that were needed. Among the many aspects for which I was wholly unprepared was the performance nature of the event, which was a highly stylised piece of cultural theatre.

Stagehands began doing the last-minute preparations soon after we arrived, just before eight in the morning. Among the limited information I had received was that the day’s events would last until 9:30 in the evening, and I found out that the flourishes of performance would punctuate long periods of boredom. Life was long and preparing for the trip to the hereafter — it was conveniently translated to me as the “other world” — took a long, elaborate effort as well.

The stage was mostly set. A large altar area featuring a large photograph of Papa surrounded by Buddhist symbols: incense, candles, carefully arranged pyramids of oranges and steamed buns, the typical food offerings. The stage was separated from the large open space by a barrier festooned with an elaborate installation of various things that I can’t list since note-taking seemed to me to have been disrespectful, so I am relying on my memory. The sides of the room were set with chairs for guests, and there was a reception desk by the front door, upon which lay a long, decorated scroll that served as a memorial book.

The family was busy filling the small red envelopes used to give ceremonial gifts, which included a small wrapped candy and an odd coin with a hole in it. Each guest would receive one when they arrived and would need to eat the candy immediately, the sweetness being symbolic of something.

Colours always carry significance, and we all put our white clothes on over our outer ones in a small green room (painted white, in fact) behind the stage/altar. Our white sneakers were the sort of thing school kids used to wear in England, called plimsoles. Surprisingly, we also had to wear more ceremonial garments. In fact, we were dressed by yellow-jacketed attendants.

The sons, the daughter (my wife), and the daughter-in-laws had one custom, and I had a slightly different one. Mainly, we were wrapped in a white, sleeveless mantel held by a tied sash. The women had hoods, and the men had a headband. As always, when I wear an Asian costume (like at Chinese New Year), I look like a cut-rate Steven Segal.

Paper Boats and Majong

Unknown preparations continued. The official in charge, himself also wearing a white outer garment, fussed around behind the barrier near the altar. We busied ourselves folding stacks of decorated pieces of paper about the size of advertising handbills, the sort handed out on busy streets, except these were quality paper embossed with symbolic motifs. I was shown the correct way to make the fold so it would resemble a boat, meant to symbolically ferry the deceased into the other world.

I never quite got the hang of it, even though I made hundreds of them. Everyone spent their waiting time on this task, including all the mourners who arrived over the course of that long day. The official collected them periodically and they accumulated in large sacks. Meanwhile, family members began burning them in a small furnace to the left of the altar. Symbolic burning is a key element of the ritual.

The most obvious theatrical connection is the models built and purchased to accompany the deceased so that he would not want for anything in the other place. In a workshop somewhere in the bowels of the enormous building, skilled craftsmen had created highly detailed models of important things from Papa’s life.

These things started appearing in the room, brought in by the yellow-jacketed guys, miniature props crafted in intimate detail: a mahjong table — Papa loved playing in his youth — with three well-dressed, highly detailed playing partners seated on ornate chairs and a model game in progress. There was also a two-level house, styled after the traditional country houses that still exist in the more rural areas of Hong Kong, presumingly for Papa to reside in the afterlife. It looked every bit as real to life as a Chinese version Victorian doll house that Miss Havisham may have played with. Finally, there was a white Mercedes-Benz. All these things were brought into the hall as we busily folded paper boats.

Incense and Gongs

Soon came my first appearance on the stage in one of many increasingly elaborate rituals. We lined up in husband and wife ranks with Momma off to the right and were handed three long sticks of incense. A prayer was intoned by the official, and we all bowed three times, and that was that. The dullness was tempered by the folding and watching the arrival of a group of men dressed like labourers in outdoor jackets — the weather was quite chilly — who began setting up what would become the orchestra area. Mourners also began to arrive. There was a reception area where they received their little red gift envelope and signed the guest scroll.

Then we were summoned to stand in our ranks on the left of the altar, and the priest led the guests in a short bowing ritual in front of the altar. Then they came over to us to offer condolences as one would at a Western funeral. The guests then sat down in the ranks of chairs and joined the boat-making industry. We produced half a dozen industrial-sized bags of these, all of which were hand shovelled into the furnace.

After setting up their instruments, drums, cymbals, little gongs, the workmen took off their outside jackets and donned ornate robes. Their leader also took a priestly role and periodically intoned texts and led rituals that I was sometimes summoned to take part in. Last to arrive was a specialist musician who played both a sort of Chinese oboe with a reed and a large bell and a sort of upright two-stringed fiddle.

Throughout the day this ensemble, led by the priest, recited prayers while combinations of family members and I were led in rituals with the crashing of high-pitched cymbals, low drums, and the oboe-thing. Near the end of the day, an arrangement of clay plates was put out, and pieces of symbolic paper were burned piece by piece. Amid the clamber of the music, the priest brandished a sword and smashed each plate in turn, symbolising something. What I discovered is that the band was an outside group hired for the occasion, and their show was a specific kind of rite favoured by the widow, my mother-in-law.

Papa’s Final Journey

The spectacular final act took place on the top floor of the building. There were still sacks of paper boats to be incinerated, and I was enlisted to help burn them all under an increasing sense of urgency. I like burning things — not too much, don’t worry — so at first I welcomed this assignment. But the industrial quantity of paper to put into the flames soon became a little tedious. Finally we were all summoned to help carry the props, the house, as tall as a man’s waist, the little silver Benz, the size of a medium dog, and the nearly life-sized mahjong tableau, into an industrial elevator. After the appropriate prayers and with us bowing, all Papa’s things were pitched into the flames.

Throughout I was carefully and discreetly coached on how to carry out my parts and I did my best to follow along when things were not completely clear. Clearly I was accepted and considered an important part of the event. I was introduced to a good number of the guests and was never treated like the exotic outsider that I felt I was when I first put on my ceremonial clothes.

Amid the ancient trappings of tradition, I spoke in English with cosmopolitan Hong Kongers. One young man, a nephew of the deceased, is an architect living in France. We chatted about education and our impressions of the French, me from my experience living in Switzerland and visiting across the border regularly, and he from his experience of being a resident married to a French woman and just welcoming a new child.

The sense of flux between time, generations, the tangible, and the eternal warmed the chilly room as the day passed, one of millions before and maybe to come.

Dedicated to the memory of Man-choi Li (1932–2018)