HK - Honouring the Departed

It rained heavily last night. There’s a tropical depression in the area and the showers will continue for another few days – which is good news since the temperatures have fallen a couple of degrees to thirty Celsius (although the humidity has increased to 95%).

Today is the anniversary of my father-in-law’s death, and we made an extended family pilgrimage to pay respects to him (and to my recently-deceased mother-in-law, both of whom were interred with Buddhist rites). Our party comprised three sons and one daughter of the deceased, with assorted spouses plus my son, eight people in all, and we travelled about 45 minutes (10 stations on the underground MTR train) to a Buddhist monastery in Kowloon, the nearest mainland part of Hong Kong.

 

The monastery was secluded from the main road by a high wall and, after entering through a small doorway, we looked around. It was quiet and peaceful, a gentle rain still falling, the skies leaden.

 

There were some statues and a few mature trees in the courtyard together with a fish pond with about 30 fish of different colours; red, yellow, gold – and a large one about 18 inches long that was pure black. The only other living thing was a large fierce dog chained to a post that gave a warning growl and then lay down – but kept both eyes fixed on us throughout our visit.

 

We entered one of the two memorial halls, where the tablet to honour my wife’s parents was located. There were hundreds of tablets fixed in rows in the two halls. Our first duty was to place offerings in front of our tablet.

 

First, five bowls of rice and five bowls of tea were placed for ‘the ancestors.’ Then, separate offerings of food, fruit, and flowers were placed for my parents-in-law. Finally, paper sacks of (paper) gold, silver and coins were placed on the ground, one sack for the ancestors, one for my father-in-law, and one for my mother-in-law. All three sacks were to be ceremoniously burnt later.

As we made the arrangements, taped Buddhist chants played softly in the background.

All the tablets are inscribed using the same layout – three columns of characters. The right-hand column is the details of the male deceased (husband), the left hand column is the information for the female deceased (wife), and the middle column has details of the ancestors. Where there are only two columns, this indicates that one spouse is still living and his/her details will be added later, after death.

Then the ceremony began, quite informal but structured. Each person lit three incense sticks, bowed three times before the tablet and placed the sticks in an incense burner.

Incense Burner

Prayers were said individually. Again, homage was offered, this time kowtowing (kneeling with foreheads touching the ground) and each individual offered two sticks of incense. The respect and affection for the deceased was tangible and there were quiet tears and lumps in throats.

During the natural break that followed, we decided to sneak a look at the large image of Buddha in the entrance hallway.

Emboldened, we decided to have a look in the main prayer hall too, so, taking off our footwear we went exploring.

The main prayer hall had seats for 24 worshippers, with kneelers, plus another 20 seats around the edges.

At the back of the hall was a collection of statues of the Buddhist pantheon, I recognised a few, particularly Kwan Yin, the goddess. The walls had prints from the life of Gautama Buddha while the main focus of worship, three large gilt statues, stood on an altar before which were gifts of food and fruit, flowers and candles.

While we were exploring, the monk in charge, a bald 93 year old with sparkling eyes arrived and took a delight in explaining everything. At least, I assumed that that was what he was doing since he spoke in Cantonese. He sounded incredibly alert and ‘with it’ for a 93 year old, there was a sense of peace about him but also a sense of barely supressed amusement, as if we had made his day by turning up.      

 

Finally, we broke away and went off to set the paper bags alight. Our family is traditional so we only burned money – paper notes and coins plus paper shapes painted to look like gold and silver bars – money to pay for the deceased’s needs in the after world. Less traditional families will burn paper goods in the form of various modern conveniences, such as suits of clothes, shoes, TVs, cars – even mobile phones! The three bags were set alight, one after the other, to the sound of prayers, and then they were placed in an incinerator. 

Afterwards, we retired to a restaurant for lunch and, in keeping with the Buddhist ethos of respect for all living beings, it was a vegetarian restaurant. However, with the typically wicked Hong Kong sense of humour, we could still order dishes that appeared to be meat and fish – but were really vegetables cunningly disguised as meat or fish (see below). Also, in line with Buddhist beliefs, the restaurant was alcohol-free, and they served a non-alcohol beer (- however, that did a less effective job in passing itself off as the real thing!).

Pretend sashimi, sushi, abelone

Pretend meat-wrapped asparagus

Pretend meat skewers