One Wedding and a Million Funerals

Funerals in Thailand, certainly in rural Thailand, are a community affair. They are either held in the home of the deceased or in the neighbourhood temple or sometimes across the two. They can last anywhere between 3 and 7 days. Sometimes even longer. During this time posters are often put up around the town announcing the deceased’s passing and the funeral, and it seems as if anyone is welcome to attend. There are various ceremonies that happen over the course of the funeral proceedings such as anointing the body with water, blessings by monks, offerings being made and the eventual cremation ritual. But these events are usually the domain of close relatives and friends, the rest of the time is for anyone who wishes to attend.

When people arrive, they will generally first give an offering of incense to the usually elaborately displayed coffin. Then they will sit at a table and will be served a vast quantity of food. Each table will have at least one curry, a vegetable dish, a Chinese style meat dish, a soup, fresh vegetables, naam prik and rice. Often after the meal there will be sweets, tea, snacks and pea nuts. There is also often (despite signs put up around the temple) whiskey and beer. I have been to some funerals where the whiskey is poured from a teapot! After the meal is finished, people leave quickly (unless they have started on the tea pot), but first will leave a donation towards the cost of the funeral. In return they will often receive a small gift of a pen, a glass or tiger balm or something similar. Much like a wedding favour.

The family and local community all work tirelessly throughout the duration of the funeral. The local women immediately take over all cooking and cleaning. Lines of them will sit cackling away to each other tackling mounds of washing up. The food is served and cleared usually by younger members of the family. The closest male relative (ie son) or daughter if there is none, acts as host. They greet each table and direct food over to it.

None of the close family ever seems to take a break for the whole duration of the funeral – often starting early in the morning and finishing late at night for several days on end. It actually seems an excellent way to tackle grief; they are simply too tired to mourn. But the whole event, for the large part, is a cheerful one. There is never a focus on the achievements of the life of the person as with western funerals - that is shown by the amount and the calibre of the people who attend. If the local mayor turns up to your funeral, you did good. People come, pray, eat, socialise, leave. They are Buddhists after all, what is there to mourn for? Another cycle has been completed. As most people live within close communities here in the south, they are just as likely to see a birth happen the next day, or a wedding at the weekend.

In general my experiences of Thai funerals have always been good. There was the wildly bizarre funeral that culminated in fireworks, a disco and coyote girls, quite a few drunken funerals and so much good food. In fact I blame my mother-in-law’s weight problems on her near constant attendance at funerals. But there are the sad funerals too.

A cousin of M’s had died whilst having a caesarean section with twins. When I heard the circumstances of the death, I was quite shocked. I had never attended such a tragic funeral in England. But when we arrived, it was incredibly light hearted. A lot of conversation revolved around the actual death, Thai’s will never shy away from the gruesome details (the body after all is only flesh). In addition the doctor who performed the surgery was suspected of malpractice which provided a great amount of gossip, here-say and discussion. I suspect that the Thai attitude to her death was that it was lucky the twins were born healthy, and that they would focus on that. My only maudlin memory of the day was seeing the woman’s teenage son. Often the eldest son will become a monk for a period of time after one of his parents die. Her son must have been about 14. He was dressed in his elaborate novice robes and his shell-shocked face stood out even more starkly due to his freshly shaved eyebrows and head. My heart went out to him. His twin siblings after all would never know who they had lost.

We also recently attended the funeral of one of M’s school friends. I had never met him, but had heard about their antics at school. He was known as a vibrant, friendly, ‘jai dee’ guy. Before we arrived we were told he had committed suicide, but knew no details. We arrived and instead of sitting in the main dining hall with the older relatives, we went and sat in the hall where the coffin was, where all of his friends had gathered. About 5 of his friends were sleeping in the hall with him. They would constantly top up his offerings of food and beer whilst we were here, and it honestly felt like we were there keeping him company. We learnt more about the circumstances of his death and how 3 people were suspected of covering up his murder. As we sat there various people arrived to give offerings and pray. Quite a few sat in stunned silence with tears in their eyes taking in the sudden loss. This was the first funeral I had been to where I too felt sad, although I hadn’t known him. It was obvious that many people felt his loss, I had been to enough funerals to know that grief is not shown lightly.
Comparing Thai funerals to western funerals is very hard for me, considering I think I have only been to a handful a funerals in the UK– a sign of how fractured our communities are now.

There does feel a lack of attention to the life of the person in Thailand, when you look around seeing people chatting and laughing, it is hard to feel like you are really meant to be mourning. But also you have to respect the fact that Thais are truly not scared of death the way that we are, therefore why would they mourn? Death is just another step in the cycle of life and rebirth, it will come to us all. I remember my grandmother’s funeral being a typically catholic event, hymns, sermons, incense, flowers. I didn’t feel any attachment to the events, but it was something my grandmother believed deeply in. But it is with happiness that I remember the nights around it spent with my family, eating, laughing, maybe crying a bit. Thai’s seem to embrace the social aspects at a funeral as being the most important part, kind of like a wake with only half a mass. I am not sure that this is such a bad thing, after all everyone remembers a person in their own way and ultimately everyone grieves on their own.

Surfing the Travelling Couch

I love T-Town, but it has one big problem. It lacks new blood. I mean new English speaking blood. Us English speaking locals are thin on the ground as it is, and during low season, barely any tourists make it out of the train station. Though I am lucky with the people I know here, we all crave a wider social network. My friend decided he would tackle the problem head on and offer a bed to anybody willing to have a conversation with us poor, dialogue starved, expats. So he popped his details into couch surfer and waited.

He struck it lucky (as we are now realizing) with the first response. A couple arrived who were in Thailand on the second year of their attempt to cycle round the world. The poor couple looked half starved (being vegetarians in the land of pig worship) and a bit knackered to be honest, but they had some fascinating stories and we sat and devoured their experiences. They were polite, interesting and self-sufficient. Just the kind of house guests you would want. They used the house to sleep, but during the day they peddled off around the town to restock their supplies of tofu and brown rice and to see the limited sites T-town has to offer. They stayed two nights and then carried on their merry way.

So far so good thought my friend. And the rest of us, who had come to believe that we now had a constant source of well travelled, intelligent people, who would leave just at the point that they started to get annoying, or just plain ordinary. The next person to apply for my friend’s spare room was a girl making her way up by couch surfer from Kuala Lumpur. The warning signals should have been heard when she asked to stay for 4 nights. NO-ONE wants to stay 4 nights in T-town. My friend was working all these days, which he warned her about, but she seemed to think that was fine.

So she arrived, and came out with us on the first night for a few drinks, and that was where she emitted the immortal words when we asked what brought her to T town, she wanted to “get off the beaten track”. Well fine I thought. I bit clichéd, but at least true. T Town is certainly one of those places. It’s REAL Thailand, with REAL Thai people. The problem was with her saying this was, as it transpired, that she was less than able to cope with being in an environment like this. She proceeded to spend the next 4 days calling my friend at every opportunity saying that she needed food and water. Or asking him where she thought she should go next AND if he could give her all the travel details to get there (times, costs etc). The rest of the time she spent holed up in her room talking to no-one and doing nothing. The problem was it seemed, that she wanted to get off the beaten track, and she wanted to stumble across a ready made tour guide on every unbeaten track that she took. She made no attempt to go out by herself, research anything or generally stand on her own two feet.

In my opinion, as soon as you make an assertion about going ‘off the beaten track’ you are giving yourself a task which is both impossible and unnecessary. In this case she though couch surfer would be the answer. Undeniably I am sure this would offer her some great experiences, but it meant she was unwilling to move on until she had somewhere, and she wasted 4 days in a place where she did nothing. For me traveling is all about the freedom of not knowing what is happening next. The beaten track or unbeaten track are irrelevant. If you leave yourself open to whatever opportunities come up, then you will at some stage end up doing something no one else has done, in a place where no one else is. You will also end up having a fantastic time somewhere where thousands of other tourists are, and you don’t have to feel guilty about that. Tourist places are often touristy for a reason, they are great places to visit. Of course there are other great places with not so many tourists, but by focusing yourself purely on these you are ending up just as blinkered as the tourist who books a package tour.

Sunshine After the Rain

I don't think that before I moved to the T town I had any concept of how long a rainy season it had. It's the best part of 5 months. Insanely long. And though it doesn't rain all day every day as it did on my island home, it is guaranteed to rain the moment you want to drive to school/wash your hair/leave the house for any reason. As we are currently car-less (I'm doing my bit for the environment, I tell myself) going out when it's raining is a biiiiig no no. Not only is is wet (duh) but as soon as you get any speed up, the previously large blobby raindrops turn into bb gun pellets that aim directly for your eyes. And when I say wet, you might be thinking of slightly damp shoulders and frizzy hair. Nu-uh, I am talking about sodden-knicker drenched in a matter of seconds. So to combat this, you wear waterproofs. Giant great capes with a helmet shoved on top so that you don't have to drive with your eyes closed (not advisable, though frequently necessary). So you are all covered up and ready to tackle the road. That's when you discover that even without the BB gun pellets, the road is still completely invisible due to the mist that the steaming rain produces. That car that was previously invisible, appears in front of you and then you try to brake. Whhooops. All of this AND tackling it alongside drivers from the Siam School of Motoring (main rules: you are the only person on the road, if someone hits you it's their fault, wing mirrors are for popping zits). Sooo all of this means if you are car-less in rainy season in the T-town, you hibernate.

At first hibernation was fun. We had just come out of hot season. I mean H-O-T season. I mean have-to-sleep-with-your-fingers-splayed season. And for us unfortunates without AC (again a green choice...I tell myself again and again..) there is no respite. Well there is...it's called Tesco Lotus and it's 5 minutes away, but unfortunately they won't let me sleep there. I tried. I digress. It was hot, and suddenly it was not (sorry). And the relief was huge. You could sleep at night, you could nap during the day, you could lie in... you totally get why Thai's are always banging on about rainy season being "good for sleep"... it totally is. But... there is only so much you can sleep in 5 months, until you start going a little stir crazy/cabin-fever ridden. Some days we would be hungry for hours but the rain was too heavy to go out. Clothes take weeks to dry, your favourite leather bag goes mouldy and all of a sudden. BAM. You are sooooo over it.

So thank god for the sun arriving again to cheer us all up. And not just any sun, this amazing not too hot sun that brings an awesome wind with it. The weather has truly been spectacular the last few weeks. Misty mornings, breezy afternoons and cool nights. It kind of makes it all worth while (check back with me mid-May though and I am sure I will have a different perspective on the sun and where it should stick itself.)