Chinese wake/funeral from last week

There was a Chinese wake/funeral here last week in our neighborhood. I wrote a little about it each day:

Thursday:
It's 11:30pm here. I should be in bed, but I'm not. I just started hearing the music from a Chinese wake. I had such a vague sense that I was barely hearing some music at first, but the noise got louder and louder til I realized (with a certain amount of dread) what it was. These usually start at 6 or 7 in the morning and stop during sleeping hours. I have no idea why it is starting now at 11:30pm! I'm just SO glad that it's winter and our windows are shut and that we have a fan running to muffle some of the noise. These wakes often last 3 days long, and the music is loud and echos between the buildings. The people get sound systems from somewhere. I assume they rent them. We have seen some with live musicians and some with "canned" music, and some that use both. We've also seen where they'll have some sort of special program at night time, and Chinese opera singers sing. Most of the music is so strange to me and seems to have very little rhyme or reason to it (which makes it highly annoying). It just goes on and on sounding the same. If you've ever heard the singing from a genuine Chinese opera, you've heard that twangy, nasally, uber-vibrato sound, and one of the main instruments seems to somewhat copy that sound although it's not so high-pitched. I'm not sure how to even describe the instruments used - I guess some have called it a Chinese oboe. It's called a Suona. It can be played in such a way that it really sounds like wailing - good for a funeral. Hmmm...now it's a little bit later, and the music has stopped. It probably only went on for about 15 minutes. I'm wondering if that was the prelude to a 3-day thing, or if that's an abbreviated version of the whole thing because of the cold. (it's -2f/-19c outside!)

Friday:
Well, the music started around 6am. I got up and turned on our noisy dehumidifier so that Nita and I could sleep a little longer. When I got up for the day, the music was stopped again, and it's been playing off and on all day - more on than off. Now it's around 4pm, and it's playing as loud as ever. I'm also hearing some yelling - almost sounds theatrical, and it could be part of it all somehow. Both of our girls are down for naps. There's a fan on medium in Eden's room to muffle the music, and the dehumidifier is on for Nita. I'll have to ask Brant if he saw where the music is coming from this time. It's not right outside our building. I think there has been two other wakes outside our building since we've lived here, and the others are down between other buildings, as this one is. They usually have some sort of make-shift tent set up where the casket is, and they put flowers around. I believe they also burn incense and offerings/effigies. One time we saw a large paper mache horse/donkey that I think they burned. They also burn fake money. There are many superstitions about all of this stuff. Brant has talked about these funeral traditions with some other Chinese neighbors, and they seemed to scoff at it - like it's the old-fashioned, country folk who do these things, and the main reason they do it is because friends and family are supposed to come and give lots of money to the family.

(On a side note - a really odd thing happened today. I was singing a song to Eden. I finished singing my song and then noticed the music outside, and it seemed to me like I was singing in the same key as the music that was playing outside!)

Saturday:
I'm pretty sure the music started around 6am again today. Brant is an earlier-than-6-riser, so when he left the room, he turned the dehumidifier on so that the music wouldn't wake me and Anita up. It amazes me that those performers are out there so early when it's so cold! It was probably around 7 below this morning and stayed pretty cold all day today. I tried to get a video just for hearing how the sound is inside our apartment with the window shut and then open. The music is loudest in our kitchen. After hearing this "background music" all day for a few days, Brant and I have experienced a strange thing. That is, after the music is finally quiet for the night, we both have had a time when we were sure we were still hearing it. Actually, yesterday I was home and awake all day, and so it happened to me yesterday, but today I went out and Brant was home all day, and so it happened to Brant tonight. Yesterday, Brant went by the funeral area and said he saw two make-shift tents set up - one for the casket, and one for the musicians. I heard some Chinese opera performers singing last night in some special performance. We have wanted to go out and take a look at it all and even take pictures, but that seems a bit rude to the family, so we haven't done that. If it all goes according to how I remember other wakes like this, tomorrow morning should end it all with some fireworks added into the program.

I was thinking of how sad it is that there are so many dark traditions concerning Chinese funerals/wakes, but in reality, any funeral/wake that is God-less is a sad thing, whether there are strange traditions or not. The whole creation groans under the weight of sin.

Sunday:
No more!! It must have ended last night. It was kind of an odd schedule compared to what we've seen in the past, but that's fine with me. And so goes the cycle of life - a funeral one day, and a wedding the next. I looked out the window this morning and saw that all the manhole covers had red papers on them. That is a wedding tradition. Sure enough, just a little bit after that, we heard the fireworks from a wedding celebration over on the other side of the building next to ours, and shortly after that, there was the procession of black cars leaving our neighborhood. The wedding thing here is an all day affair with a bunch of people at the bride's house first early in the morning, fireworks and traditions there, then off to the grooms house, fireworks and traditions there, then off to a restaurant maybe, and who knows where from there. We've never attended a whole-day wedding. Judging from what time it was in the morning, I'm guessing it was the groom's family's apartment in the building next to ours. When our Eden thinks of fireworks, she thinks of weddings! In her mind, they go hand in hand, and she talks about how someday she'll have a wedding and there will be fireworks.

These video clips are of funeral processions in China. We haven't seen a procession like this, but the main reason I'm posting it is so that you can hear the music. That's the sound of a Suona that we've been hearing.