Question

Different cultures view death and dying differently. For this assignment you will research a culture, other than your own and using your Culturally Competent Health Care textbook by Larry Purmell or the internet to address the following: Describe the current views and possible ceremonial processes, honoring the death and dying of their loved ones for the culture you chose to research. You may find some differences in values between your culture and the one you have researched. If you did, what are they and how do you feel about them? If not, what similarities between your culture and the one you have researched did you find, how do you feel about them? Use APA formatting for your paper, using headings as shown below: Title page Body Heading: Introduction of your paper topic? the culture you have selected to research. (this is the first bullet point above) Heading: Background Discuss value differences or similarities between your culture and the one you researched. (this is the second bullet point above) Heading: Conclusion ? a

Answer 1

Chinese Tradition and Cultures on Death and Dying

Introduction:

Death must bring grief to us, but we have to face it because it is the law of nature. China has formed a great and profound culture of death.

Chinese people believed that the souls of the dead lived in another world: the nether world and graves were their earthly residences. Death, of course, brings boundless grief to the living, but the living has traditionally held grand, even extravagant funerals to see off the dead. Today, funerals are much more simple and economical.

Besides the grand funeral, people would bury some funeral objects for the dead, such as gold, silver, bronze wares, pottery, and other precious things. That’s why China has so many historical relics hidden underground and why grave robbery has been so prosperous in Chinese history.

Background:

The belief in Chinese folk religion is that people have multiple souls, known as ‘hun’ and ‘po’. Upon death, these souls diverge, with hun rising to the heavens and po descending into the earth. Chinese funerary rituals vary with the age, cause of death, and marital and social status of the deceased, but they respond to the needs of the two souls. The primary aim is to provide comfort for the deceased and demonstrate ancestral veneration. Regional traditions and minority groups determine the precise practices, but in general, the ceremony is carried out over the course of seven days. The deceased is clad in white clothing; red, which symbolises happiness, is rarely worn. Rituals and gestures are often carried out three times in accordance with the number’s positive connotation.

Tradition and culture:

Most Chinese people believe that burial brings peace to the deceased, so they follow the tradition of inhumation. Influenced by Buddhism, many Chinese people believe that the souls of the dead stay and protect their descendants.

Qingming Festival is the day for descendants to worship their ancestors and pray for their protection, which is believed to bring luck to descendants. That’s one of the most important reasons why Chinese people (especially some successful Chinese businesspersons) are very serious about the festival.

On Qingming Festival, almost all Chinese people go to graveyards for tomb-sweeping (cleaning the tombs, burning joss sticks and joss paper, and sacrificing some ready-to-eat food and some flowers), sending their memory and respect to their ancestors.

Besides inhumation (the major custom of Chinese death culture), there are many other customs on disposing the dead, such as cremation, ‘water burial’, ‘sky burial’ (to let vultures eat the corpse), ‘tree burial’ (put the corpse on a big tree), ‘cave burial’ (put the corpse in a cave), ‘cliff burial’ (put the corpse on a cliff), ‘ship burial’, and cliff coffin burial.

Cliff coffin burial is an unsolved mystery because how the ancient people fixed those heavy coffins on cliffs is still unknown.

Generally speaking, graves in China look like earth mounds (for marking), some of which are planted with trees (which symbolize the continuation of the dead). The location of a grave is selected according to Feng Shui, an ancient art related to the law and order of the universe and the power of nature.

Guilin’s Mount Yao is recognized as a place with great Feng Shui, and there is a mausoleum of a Jingjiang Prince and a cemetery nearby. That’s also why some hikers on Guilin’s Mount Yao can find a lot of graves on the sides of the mountains.

According to Fengshui theory on burial, when the dead person is buried underground, energy can form because of the combination of the dead spirit and the grave location. Then the energy can influence the whole family. For an imperial mausoleum, the location can influence the country’s fate. Almost all imperial mausoleums were built by mountains and rivers, based on really strict and complicated Fengshui theory, which is impossible to describe thoroughly in several lines.

The Feng Shui system developed based on the elements of mathematics, geology, astronomy, astrology, physics, philosophy, psychology and intuition. Fengshui is widely used in traditional Chinese architecture, in the site selection and the layout of a building, a courtyard, and even a city.

Beijing harmonious to nature is the aim of Feng Shui theory. In laymen’s terms, Fengshui mentions that everything is related to each other. There is a close relationship between one’s fate and the place he/she lives and works in, and the location of his/her ancestral graves. A good location and layout can make the owner fortunate.

Coffins, in China, can be made from many materials, including wood, stone, and bronze. Wooden coffins are the commonest ones. A Chinese coffin is made with three longer boards and two shorter boards, so in the Chinese language, is used as an idiom for unexpected misfortune (like death).

Colorado, USA

Colorado is home to the Crestone End-of-Life Project – billed as the only legal, public, open-air crematorium in the

The United States. In the town of Crestone, mourners place juniper boughs, piñon pine and spruce tree logs on the body of the deceased; they encircle the subject of cremation. The materials are chosen for their high flammability, and the mourners watch as fire overwhelms the body. Many are drawn to this funerary ritual, but residency in the small town is a prerequisite to taking part.