Chinese funeral rituals

Throughout history, Chinese people have carried out complex funeral rites, with tombs of early rulers rivalling ancient Egyptian tombs in their funerary art and provision for the dead in the afterlife. The late 3rd century BCE Terracotta Army contains approximately 9,000 terracotta figures that were buried to protect Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China.

Traditional burial customs show a strong belief in life after death and the need for ancestor veneration among the living; Confucian philosophy calls for paying respect to one's ancestors as an act of filial piety (孝 xiào).[3][7] These ideals still inform funeral rites for many Chinese people today.

Skeleton Fantasy Show by Li Song (1190-1264)

It is customary for relatives to hold vigils over the dying, in order to accompany them until the very last moment before entering the afterlife. This process, called shǒu líng (守靈), is a way for loved ones to show filial piety and loyalty to the deceased. Family members thus take shifts to watch over a relative on their deathbed.[8]

It is common to place a white banner over the door of the household to signify that a death has occurred. Families will usually gather to carry out funeral rituals, in order both to show respect for the dead and to strengthen the bonds of the kin group. Those with closer relationships to the dead (i.e. sons and daughters) wear white garments, while more distant relatives wear garments in different colours of white, black, blue and green. The colours red, yellow, and brown are traditionally not worn during the mourning period, which may last up to three years.[7] Before a funeral, an obituary notice fùwén (訃聞) is commonly sent to relatives and friends announcing the date and time of the funeral procession.[3] The date is usually selected as an auspicious one according to the Chinese fortune calendar (通勝 tōng shèng).

The deceased is dressed in clean funeral dress (小殮 xiǎo liàn) in preparation for their departure from the world (人世 rén shì) and journey into the afterlife (來世 lái shì).[9] Dà liàn (大殮) is the ritual of transferring the body of deceased into the coffin (入木 rù mù), which will rest in the funeral hall decorated with four-character idioms (成语 cheng yu) prior to the burial or cremation.[10] Before the funeral procession, the jiā jì (家祭) is held. According to the closeness and status of the family members, they will pay respects diàn (奠) to the deceased.

According to Chinese custom, an elder should never show respect to someone younger.[11] So, if the deceased is a young bachelor, for example, his body cannot be brought home and must remain at the funeral parlour. His parents cannot offer prayers to their son either. Since he was unmarried, he did not have any children who could perform these same rites for him. (This is why the body cannot come into the family home.) If an infant or child dies, no funeral rites are performed either since respect cannot be shown to a younger person. The child is thus buried in silence.[12]

The funeral procession (發引 fā yǐn) is the process of bringing the hearse to the burial site or site of cremation. During the funeral, offerings of food items, incense, and joss paper are commonly presented. The offering of food and joss paper signifies the continuing interdependence between the deceased and their living descendants.[7] Taoist or Buddhist prayers are sometimes carried out by monks, to help the deceased's soul to find peace and escape the fate of becoming a "restless ghost".

Every year at the Qing Ming Festival (清明節), people pay respect to their ancestors by visiting their graves and tidying up their tombstones. Later generations are invited to participate through this process of ancestor veneration (慎終追遠 shèn zhōng zhuī yuǎn).

• Filial mourning
• Ancestor veneration in China
• Colour in Chinese culture
• Chinese burial money