Today's Track : The Carpenters - Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

This weekend was quite a somber one. Friday night I attended Sonia’s grandmother’s wake. To date, my 2nd wake/funeral and it never gets any easier. A few interesting things to note about the funeral and traditions :

1. Chinese/Vietnamese tradition is to burn fake money and paper gold/silver bars so that the dead have money in the after life. This perplexes me on the account that I’d imagine everything in the after life to be free. Except maybe movies. Movies are ridiculously priced everywhere.



2. The fake bank notes they burn have “Hell” on them. I made some inquiries as to why they bought the currency for Hell. Apparently, when we die there is no Heaven and Hell. There is no good or bad place. We all go to the same place except this place has different levels. This doesn’t really answer the original question but this all but confirms my belief that we’re all going to Hell. I’m stocking up on marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers after work today.



3. The funeral home address was 665 Spadina. Right across from 666 Spadina. This has nothing to do with tradition but I just thought it was an eerie coincidence. Maybe that’s where they bought the Hell bank notes.



4. When you arrive at a wake you’re asked to burn some incense and bow for the deceased person. Knowing full well that Asian people are very superstitious about numbers, I knew there was a certain number of bows I had to do. My dilemma was that I couldn’t remember whether 3 or 4 was the unlucky number of death. So I bowed twice to be safe. The next day I found out I was suppose to bow 3 times. 4 is the unlucky number of death.

Oddly enough, after the wake I attended a birthday party (cue Elton John’s “Circle of Life”.) It made me wonder whether it’s more important to celebrate the beginning of life -- a birthday, or the inevitable end of life -- a wake/funeral. Then I finally realized it wasn’t a celebration or a mourning of someone’s death that I had attended prior to the birthday. It was actually a celebration of the person and the great life they lived. The funeral the next day wasn’t as somber.