Arthur M Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art - The National Museum of Asian Art - Smithsonian Institution
Ancestor Worship Today list of exhibitions > online exhibitions > teens > Funeral
 
Various Funerary Practices
 
This photo shows a ritual performed recently in the temple of the Capital True Buddhist Society in Spencerville, Maryland. Food was burned as an offering to any ancestral spirits in the area, while chanting invited the spirits to the "feast."
A ritual performed recently in the temple of the Capital True Buddhist Society in Spencerville, Maryland.


Offerings for the ancestors' spirits are in front of the grave. The small slit is for incense.
Grave site
Offerings for the ancestors' spirits are in front of the grave. The small slit is for incense. The big characters in the middle say "father" and "mother." The right side tells birth and death dates. On the left are names of family members. Inside the box are the ashes of the deceased.


Funerary Music
Mei Hua Ts'ao (Plum Blossoms) as performed by the Han-Tang Classical Music Institute. mp3


"For my father-in-law's funeral, there was a lot to do: I was the one who organized it."
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Chihoung Chen
"We would pour more wine to our ancestors. Then we would go outside and burn paper money, and pour wine around the burning paper money. "
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Li-san Chen
"The Chinese tradition has a tendency to prefer men over women. It is always a male relative who performs important tasks in the family. The parents see the male as the carrier of the next generation of the family."
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Lisa Mak
"My father's funeral is probably my most vivid memory of an experience in a funeral. My father had suffered a stroke, and he stayed at a hospital for a week before he died."
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Martin Chang
Martin Chang is an immigrant from Taiwan. He cannot travel to his father's grave every year on Qingming jie (Grave Sweeping Day).
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Yeong-Tsuey Uang
Yeong-Tsuey Uang was born and raised in Kao Shiung, Taiwan. She moved to the United States in 1980. When she was growing up, her family worshiped their ancestors on two holidays: Chinese New Year and Grave Sweeping Day (Qingming jie).
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A look at the Altars
Ceremony in Taiwan
Funerary Practices
Meet the Research Team