The Burial of Mr. Ping
Fengxiang, China
There were ten of them walking in a tidy single file line. The four in front were old men dressed in suits while the other seven were dressed head to toe in white sheets.
The men had a complex knot tied on their backs and the women were veiled. The four men in front were playing horns and crashing large cymbals together. They walk past me, staring.
From a distance I follow them to a small mud-brick home on a village lane. As each person enters the doorway, they kneel and kiss the ground. A collection of small red, yellow and white flags flutter in the doorway.
Entering a small courtyard I see preparations being made for a funeral: slips of transparent paper, later to be burned, are being assembled into a black bowl. A large, red, gold and black coffin is carried from one of the apartments.
Men go back and forth with shovels, filling the coffin halfway with dirt. The casket is colossal; about five feet deep and ten feet long, it is clearly a casket for an enormous man. On the sides of the coffin are traditional Chinese motifs: A man reclining on cushions surrounded by fruit, a large dragon. On each side of the coffin are mirrors.
Blankets and quilts are produced and carefully placed inside the casket.
‘His name was Mr. Ping,” one of the mourners explains to me. “My grandfather.”
One of the men take deep pulls from Maotai, a strong Chinese rice wine. After he takes a swig, he sprays it from his mouth into each corner of the coffin. He takes great care to ensure that each area has been sprayed with alcohol.
Mr. Ping is finally brought out in a lime green iron casket. The cover is removed and I am ushered closer to him to get a better look. He appeared to have been dead for quite some time. His face was in the later stages of decomposition, his lips eroded. His eyes lay back in his frail skull like grey marbles. I had never seen a decomposing body.
It was incredibly ugly.
He is plucked from his iron coffin and placed gently into his new, wooden one. An old woman fetches a bag of apricots, walnuts and figs and tosses them onto the body.
Instantly, a swirl of wailing sorrow comes from the mourners. It surprised me for up until that point not a tear had been shed; now grief came forward in waves.
The mourners were sitting on white sandbags and prostrating themselves in front of the coffin. A large, middle aged woman thrashed and flailed about on the muddy ground, inconsolable. This shocked me, made me feel foreign.
A bottle is passed around, everyone takes a drink. I am handed cigarettes, the standard Chinese greeting of friendship and solidarity.
Bits of paper are burned. The tiny courtyard proves to be a poor wind funnel and tiny, red hot flakes of paper twirl upward, getting in peoples eyes and mouths. With great pomp and circumstance, the cover to the coffin is brought out. The crying and yelling got louder.
Using an adhesive from a golden bowl, a mortician slowly caulked the rims of the top of the coffin. His detachment provided a contrast to the sorrow that has filled the tiny space. I felt a bond with him for I too was a stranger here.
The sunglasses-wearing mortician plugged in a power drill and recklessly drilled 7 holes into the top of Mr. Ping’s new home.
I am summoned over to help lift the massive coffin onto stilts. Squatting deeply, I grab hold of the polished wood and heave upwards, fearing I will drop the coffin.
A boy stepped forward carrying a metal tray. On it was a photograph of Mr. Ping, 100 Chinese yuan, and a pack of cigarettes and the iron stakes that will seal the coffin. The boy kneels down and bows before the vast coffin and places the tray on his head.
As each stake is placed into the wood, the crying grows ever louder and more frantic. People are in a frenzy now, hypnotized by their loss.
The tray is put onto legs and placed in front of the coffin. I look at the photograph of Mr. Ping. An ugly man, birdlike with beady eyes, he looked nearly the same alive as he did deceased.
A sheet is tied separating the coffin from the people.
People are thrashing about, some are clearly drunk. It is too much for me.
Departing like a pied piper with a trail of pig-tailed street kids, I let Mr. Ping enjoy his food and cigarettes in peace.
