Japanese funeral -- and afterwards

[TheNoNamedOne]

Went to my father in-law's funeral last week in Mainland. Those of you who have lived in Japan for a while and who are married to Japanese may have already experienced one.

My father in-law really liked my dad and before my dad had died they would sometimes do things together. My father used to always tell anyone when they were catching on to something that he was teaching them, "Now you're cooking," and I remember him saying that a few times to my father in-law.

So, I thought out of respect to my father in-law as an ode to him and my father's friendship, that when they put him inside the oven to cremate him, with my wife in tears, I leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Now, he's cookin'."

[Hollarey]

awww...what a great story to share. What did she say when you said that? Once again, my condolences to you and your family.

[TheNoNamedOne]

awww...what a great story to share. What did she say when you said that? Once again, my condolences to you and your family.

She looked up through teary eyes and kinda snickered while she was sucking snot and all. Glad I could relieve some of the tension.

About an hour later, though, I told her there was another mountain of dishes in sink at home here waiting for her. I thought it best to try and get her thinking of something else to relieve the grief a little.

[socalheart]

Our condolences, tP. :crying:

I've never been to a Japanese funeral before, but have heard stories from my folks about the ones they've been to before. Do the mourners still give the family money?

I was wondering where you'd gotten to, but not worried. It's been so quiet here. heh. ;)

[TheNoNamedOne]

Yes, they still give money

First everyone went up one by one, turned to the immediate family and bowed, took three pinches of a salty grain of some kind, held it up to their forehead, then placed it in another dish, and then lit an incense stick.

After that you gonged a kind of bell, clasped your hand together and prayed. Then once again you turned and bowed to the immediate family before taking your seat.

It was about a 1 hour Bhudist ceremoney with a priest reciting old sutras that no one understood.

Then we pushed the body to the crematory oven and rolled it in. They shut the door and told us it will take about 2 hours so to go to another room and eat a lunch they had prepared for us (it's a package deal). So, we ate and talked.

After that we went down to the other room where they brought the tray that he was cremated in. Only his ashes and bones remained. He had strong bones because a lot of them still had their shape. Then with chopsticks, two people each picked up parts and placed them in the urn, starting with the feet and ending with the skull fragments.

[TheNoNamedOne]

Finally my wife has come home. She was still sad so rather than bringing her straight home from the airport we went to see a movie and eat dinner. Obviously her knowing she had lots of dishes to wash, which I explained earlier was my way to make her forget about her grief, had worn off by now. She was prepared for that so her grief about her father's death returned.

So, I thought I would tell her as a present to cheer her up I had gone out and bought a dishwasher for her so that she would never have to worry about washing dishes again. She was so happy!

But when she came home and saw no dishwasher (of course I didn't buy one for her)she was crestfallen. I told her that let down feeling would take her mind off her father. Seems to have worked a little.

[Muku]

First condolences to the family...losing a family member leaves a void.

Odds are the, took three pinches of a salty grain of some kind, is also a type of incense. Funerals vary however not all funerals will use incense sticks. The number of times that people, held it up to their forehead, varies sometimes as well, depending on the number of people attending the funeral.

I attended a funeral here in Okinawa that had close to a 1000 mourners, one pinch was all that people used.

Do the mourners still give the family money?


The money is usually between 1,000 to 3,000 at the most, since a funeral is not a celebration the amount is a token amount to show respect for the dead and their family.

This is a fancier version
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/JapaneseFuneralEnvelope.jpg/380px-JapaneseFuneralEnvelope.jpg
Commonly used type....
http://images.jlist.com/e1/envelope.jpg

This is a link to a rather good explanation about funerals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_funeral) here, however it focuses mostly on mainland Japan. Okinawan funerals are pretty much the same but there are some "other" things that happen particularly after the funeral and the following years.