Visiting my girlfriend's family in Japan showed me how different funeral traditions can be...

I went to a funeral with my girlfriend's family out in Kyoto last spring, and it was nothing like what I grew up with back in Texas. At home, funerals are pretty open - people come and go, talk about the person, even joke around a bit. Over there, everything was super quiet and formal. They had this ritual where each person takes a pinch of ash with really long chopsticks and passes it between two people before putting it in the urn. I almost messed it up because I didn't realize you're not supposed to touch the ash directly. The really taboo part was that they told me I couldn't talk about the deceased's life or achievements at all during the ceremony - it's considered bad luck to draw attention to them. Meanwhile, in my culture, that's basically the whole point of a funeral. I felt like a bull in a china shop the whole time. Has anyone else experienced a funeral custom that totally threw you off?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor.jordan29d agoMost Upvoted

Used to think silence at funerals was weird. Now I get it.

ericp6729d ago

Man I dropped one of those chopsticks on the floor during the ash passing thing and I swear the whole room froze for like 5 seconds. My girlfriend's grandma just stared at me like I'd kicked a puppy. The worst part though was when her uncle asked me if I wanted to say something and I started telling this funny story about how the deceased once got stuck in a vending machine as a joke. Her whole family went dead silent and I knew right then I had become that awkward foreign guy forever. Safe to say I stuck to bowing and keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the trip.