A Fun Funeral

I happened to watch Adam Sandler’s Little Nicky last night on the cable. And that reminded me of my mother-in-law’s funeral in the Northeastern Thailand a few years ago. What the h-ll does a nonsense comedy of Satan’s nerdy son with speech problem to do with the funeral of my wife’s mother? It’s simple. They showed it at the end of her funeral!

As she died peacefully at the age 80 (according to the traditional counting), her week-long funeral was like a celebration. Her coffin was painted gold and had Christmas tree lights blinking over it. It looked very awkward (and very funny) to me but I did know that it meant glory of longevity. Anyway, Theravada Buddhists love glittering glory and often represent it by Christmas tree lights…

Her funeral seemed to be a rare occasion of communal entertainment for all the villagers. Two pigs and a cow were slaughtered for the feast. Women joyfully cooked, chatted and ate endlessly, while men drank almost endlessly. Everyone except my wife (who had to pay for all of this) and I (who could neither drink, eat spicy food nor speak the Lao language) was happy. Every night from midnight to dawn, they played Thai dance music through a loudspeaker. I guess it was the message to the deceased that everyone was fine and she could this world without worry… I felt it was so nice that I started to hope people would throw a wild party after my death.

And after a week of feast, they watched more than a few movies in the dried rice paddy to wrap up the funeral. I remember one of my sisters-in-law rented action movies from Hollywood and Thailand (for everyone), a romantic Hong Kong movie with Andy Lau (for women) and Little Nicky. I thought other movies were fine but Little Nicky was outrageous.

But it was fine. The movie that made fun of the heaviness of life and death might be quite appropriate for everyone before going back to life from a long funeral. Well, I guess my mischievous mother-in-law would have liked this movie…

After we came back to my mother-in-law’s home from her cremation (48-hour slow grilling using charcoal), one of the neighbours said something bad about her. Then a strong wind came out of blue and blew his cap away. He was just scared out of h-ll. Everyone knew that wind was my mother-in-law’s goodbye. I loved her playful way of leaving this world…