How to Plan a Chinese Funeral: A step-by-step guide

I noticed more people are reading my Chinese funeral blog post these days, and I wonder if it has to do with Covid-19, though I am unaware of any correlation between Asian-American death rates and the virus. Whatever the reason, I’m finally posting this guide on how to plan a Chinese funeral in the US because there’s not much information out there for us Chinese Americans. 

Last September, eight months after my own father’s passing in China, I helped my oldest friend organize her father’s funeral when he passed away unexpectedly. We spent a surreal, frantic, productive week of making both existential and practical decisions on how to properly celebrate (or mourn) Mr. Li, but we had ZERO idea where to start. 

Not only were we completely ignorant on how to plan a funeral, we knew even less about how to plan a Chinese funeral in America. It wasn’t until we spoke with funeral directors (from Jewish ones to secular ones to Chinese ones) that we began to understand the process. But there was a gap between the time of death and finding the right funeral home that was particularly difficult because we didn’t know what to expect or how to begin the next steps.

All the information written in this guide is based on my personal experience in planning a Chinese funeral. Keep in mind that funerals are highly personal, and the tips I share are particular to how we envisioned Mr. Li’s service.

It might be worth noting that we are a more “Westernized” family, meaning we have lost touch with many Chinese traditions over the years. While we made sure to perform the most basic of Chinese funeral rites and rituals to honor Mr. Li’s cultural heritage, we didn’t follow traditions to a tee. (For what a traditional funeral in China looks like, read this post about my dad’s funeral.)

We did what felt right for us. 

In the end, there is no right or wrong way to plan a funeral, so you should do what feels right for you.

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How to Plan a Chinese Funeral in the US

1. Choosing a funeral home
2. Deciding between cremation or full-body burial
3. Planning the funeral service
4. Writing an obituary 
5. Sending out “invitations”
6. Choosing a place of burial
7. Arranging the burial

1. Choosing a Funeral Home

After the painful hour of watching my friend’s dad pass away in the hospital bed, we said our final words and left Mr. Li at the hospital, where he would remain in the hospital morgue until we found a funeral home to retrieve his body and begin funeral preparations. 

After a day to get over the initial shock, we began calling and visiting funeral homes in the Boston area.

This is the first step you take after your loved one’s death: choosing a funeral home.

Choosing the right funeral home is essentially choosing the right funeral director. On top of arranging the funeral service itself, funeral directors make arrangements to transport your loved one’s body from their place of death to the funeral home, prepare death certificates, and help with other paperwork involved after one’s passing, such as informing Social Security of the deceased. 

Funeral directors help you arrange everything from the time of death to the burial, so it’s important to choose a funeral director you feel most comfortable with. 

They charge up the wazoo for their services, but you can ask for an itemized price list to pick only the services you need. This can help you find a funeral home that fits your budget while making the process most painless for you. 

Key Factors in Choosing the Right Funeral Home

Funeral services are highly personal, and funeral directors work with you to bring your vision to life. But before we understood this, we didn’t know what to look for when planning a Chinese funeral.

As we asked more questions, we formed a better idea of how we wanted Mr. Li’s funeral to look. Here’s what we determined are some key factors in choosing the right funeral home:

1. Feel comfortable working with the funeral director. This is the person who works with you to plan and execute the funeral service. Find someone who will guide you and inform you of various options for services, and at the same time, listen to your wishes. 

Keeping in mind that the funeral director also handles your loved one’s deceased body and officiates the service, will you feel comfortable leaving your loved one in this director’s care? 

After visiting three funeral homes, we chose Waterman-Langone Harborside Funeral Home because their funeral directors felt the most compassionate and warm. The funeral home itself was also the warmest of the three; when we walked into their space, it felt like we were walking into someone’s living room. There was nothing grim about it. 

2. Accommodates Chinese funeral rituals. We didn’t know what Chinese funeral rituals would involve, but it was important to us to incorporate the most basic traditions such as burning incense and joss papers. All three funeral homes had a special ventilation system for such purposes and offered similar services such as providing food offerings and lucky envelopes (scroll down to read more about Chinese funeral rituals). If it’s important for you to perform certain rites and rituals at your loved one’s funeral, then choose a funeral home that can accommodate your wishes. 

3. Chinese-speaking staff. We wanted Chinese-speaking staff to be present at the funeral to usher our mostly Chinese guests. It was also helpful for Mrs. Li, who speaks little English, to communicate with the Chinese funeral director and express her wishes for her husband’s service. 

4. Adequate parking. As Bostonians know, parking is a huge issue in the city so we wanted to eliminate that worry for our guests. Fabulously, Waterman-Langone offered free valet parking. 

While those were our priorities, there were other factors we took into consideration when choosing our funeral home:

• Space for friends and family to rest that is not in the same room as the open casket
• Space for refreshments and hot beverages
• We could play background music of Mr. Li’s favorite songs
• Itemized fees (i.e. embalming, death certificate preparations, transport of the body, casket rental, etc.)

These were added touches from Waterman-Langone that we really appreciated: 

• A lot of staff was present at the funeral including valets and ushers
• TV to display a slideshow of photos that family and friends could upload to
• The funeral directors kindly ushered all the guests to leave the funeral home at the end of the service to give us privacy with Mr. Li before the casket was closed one last time
• They informed Social Security of the death

2. Deciding Between Cremation or Full-Body Burial

After selecting your funeral home, you will decide what to do with your loved one’s deceased body. Will you cremate him or her? Or will you bury him/her full-body? 

Full-body burial: If you decide to bury your loved one full-bodied (most Chinese families choose this), you will purchase a casket for the service and burial. Directly after the service, the funeral director will lead the procession of cars to the cemetery. In that case, the funeral home will arrange with local police to accompany the procession. We did not choose a full-body burial so I am not sure how the rest of this service goes. 

Cremation: If you decide to cremate, which we did, your loved one will be placed in a rental casket for the funeral service. They use the same casket for everyone, but the lining is changed from person to person.

We were told that many Chinese families are superstitious about the casket, so Wing Fook, Boston’s first funeral home to service Asian-American families, doesn’t even offer rentals as an option. Families are required to purchase a casket that is burned with the body at the crematory. 

If you choose cremation, the funeral director will arrange for your loved one to be sent to a crematory after the funeral service.  

Wing Fook organizes family and guests in a procession to the crematory, and normally afterward, Chinese families will arrange a meal with all the guests. The funeral home actually helps you arrange that meal as well, typically at a Chinese restaurant. We did not, however, want to go to the crematory, and due to the hurried funeral preparations, did not organize a meal for our guests. We offered refreshments and beverages during the service instead. 

If you want to bury the cremains, keep in mind that it takes a few days for the cremation process, so the burial will not be held on the same day as the funeral. Because there is no exact date for when the cremains is returned to the funeral home, wait to hear back from your funeral director before making arrangements with family and friends for the burial service.

Once you have been informed by the funeral director that your loved one’s cremains has been returned, contact your cemetery supervisor to arrange a time for burial (see Step 7). 

Some families choose not to bury the cremains; some keep the urn at home or scatter the ashes, but we decided to bury Mr. Li because there is a Chinese saying (入土为安) that the soul is not at peace until it rests in the ground. Our version of Rest in Peace. What you wish to do with the cremains is, of course, completely up to you.

Choosing an urn for cremations:

If you decide to cremate, you will decide what kind of urn you want to hold your loved one’s ashes. The crematory usually puts the ashes in a plastic bag and puts the bag in a hard-plastic container. This is usually safe for burial but ask your cemetery supervisor because requirements may differ. If you want something more personal, you can choose another container, anything from a sentimental cookie jar to a fancy porcelain vessel; it’s up to you. 

3. Planning the Funeral Service

Funeral services are highly personalized. It’s helpful to have a general guideline of the pieces involved, but funeral directors are there to help you plan according to your needs and wishes. Below are some details of the service to consider in your planning. 

Visitation vs. Service

Visitation is a time allotted for friends and family to see your loved one, one last time, as well as to see you. The service is the more formal event where people deliver eulogies, or if your family is religious when a religious figure will lead the service. The service is very personal so it looks different for every family. We preferred to keep the funeral a one-day affair, so we opted out of a separate visitation day. Instead, we combined the visitation and service into a 4-hour event. 

Time and Duration

We chose a Saturday morning from 10 am to 2 pm for the funeral. Visitation was from 10-12:30, and the service was held from 12:30-2:00. People who couldn’t make the service came earlier to pay their respects to the family during visitation hours. But most people came just before 12:30 so they could visit Mr. Li and stay for the service. 

Open or Closed Casket

We wanted an open casket service, so the funeral directors embalmed, dressed, and applied makeup to Mr. Li. I read that some Chinese families, namely Buddhists, do not embalm the body so the body can decay in their natural time. In that case, you might choose a closed-casket service. 

Eulogies 

My friend wrote a eulogy for her father, which she delivered at the service. We also asked three family friends to prepare short speeches about Mr. Li. Then we opened up the floor to other guests who might want to say a few words at the service. 

Choosing an Officiant to Lead the Service

Normally the funeral directors lead the funeral service. However, because I was close to the family and their friends, I requested to lead the service. All that involved was thanking the guests for their attendance, introducing myself and the other speakers, and delivering a short story of my own. Who leads the service and how it is done is completely up to you and your family. There is no right or wrong way to do it, and it’s totally okay to leave it up to the funeral director.  

Flowers 

It is customary to display flowers at Chinese funerals. Family and friends will have flower wreaths and sprays delivered to the funeral home with two white ribbons: one ribbon has the name of the person who sent it, and the other has the name of the deceased. 

Friends and family members who couldn’t make it to the funeral (many live in China) sent us money to order flowers and ribbons on their behalf. It was extremely important to Mrs. Li that those flowers and ribbons were ordered because she wanted to make sure their blessings were delivered to Mr. Li.

My friend and her mom got a flower spray to place atop the casket. All the other flowers were displayed on one side of the room, and at the end of the funeral, all the ribbons and notes were given to us so we knew who sent the flowers and could send them thank you notes if we wished.

I highly recommend ordering these wreaths and sprays from a Chinese florist as they understand the meaning behind the colors and shapes of the flower displays. They are also far more affordable than non-Chinese florists who don’t normally prepare traditional Chinese funeral wreaths. 

Extras 

Because our funeral went into lunch-time, we ordered pastries to offer our guests. The funeral home provided hot beverages. Check with your funeral home to see if they have space for refreshments.

Mr. Li was an artist who loved classical music so we played his favorite songs in the background during visitation. This added a special touch to the funeral, and it warmed up an otherwise cold occasion. 

Waterman-Langone also had a TV where we could show photos of Mr. Li that were uploaded to a link that the funeral home provided before the service. A lot of our guests spent time watching the slideshow, remembering, or getting to know a younger Mr. Li. 

Chinese Funeral Rituals

I want to share with you the Chinese funeral rituals we performed at Mr. Li’s funeral so you have an idea of what it entails. Again, we are not a traditional Chinese family but it was important for us to incorporate basic cultural components into the funeral service. And because we were unfamiliar with the traditions, we mostly went along with what the funeral directors guided us to do. 

Burning incense and joss papers: All three funeral homes we visited had an altar for burning incense and placing food offerings to the deceased, and also a safe place to burn joss papers (currency used in the afterlife). They have installed special vents that ventilate the smoke. All the materials were provided.

Personally, I loved having joss papers at the service because all the guests participated in folding the papers into little “gold bars” that get tossed into the fire (there was a fireplace in the corner of the room). This activity brought people together, and because it was interactive, people didn’t sit around awkwardly in silence. 

Food offerings: Food offerings are prepared by the funeral homes, but you can also bring your own. All the funeral homes offered a plate of boiled chicken…the first time we had ever heard of such a tradition—I suppose it’s Cantonese—but Mr. Li was a vegetarian so we requested a plate of vegetables in its place.

Lucky envelopes: Each guest is given a little envelope stuffed with a piece of candy and a quarter. You eat the candy to add sweetness to a bitter occasion. And you spend the quarter before returning home, to ward off bad spirits and pass good fortune onto others. This was the first time we’d heard of this tradition (I think this is also a Cantonese tradition), but we rolled with it in case the superstitions came true, so after the funeral, my friend, her mom, her fiancé, and I spent our quarters on hot chocolates at Starbucks, Mr. Li’s favorite beverage. 

Hairpins and armbands: My friend and her mom were each given a hairpin with a white flower made of yarn to clip onto their hair, indicating they were relatives of the deceased. Male family members wear black armbands.

Blanket (Pei): At our initial meeting with the funeral directors, we were asked to choose the color of a silky “security blanket,” printed with a traditional Chinese pattern, used to cover Mr. Li’s body before closing the casket at the end of the service. This covering is meant to keep the deceased secure and warm as their body ascends to the Other World. You can read more about it here. 

4. Writing an Obituary 

The funeral home has a page on its website with service time and location details. In our case, it also displayed a photo of Mr. Li followed by an obituary. It was a short piece written by his daughter with Mr. Li’s most prized accomplishments and personality traits that she wanted him to be remembered by. Obituaries are also very personal so they can be as detailed or not as you wish. 

The funeral director mentioned the possibility of publishing it in our local newspaper for a fee, but we were in a rush and the paper required obituaries to be submitted a week in advance, so we did not do this. 

5. Sending Out “Invitations”

It felt a bit awkward to send “invitations” to friends and acquaintances for the funeral. We didn’t want to make people feel obligated to attend. But then we realized that a funeral is meant to be a time and space for the friends and family of the deceased to say their final words, pay their respects, support the family, or whatever it is they feel the need to do. It’s as much for friends and acquaintances who cared for the deceased as it is for family members. 

So, once the funeral home website was updated with Mr. Li’s service details, we shared the link with our friends via text message and WeChat (a Chinese text-messaging app). There are other outlets such as social media and email—whatever is easiest for you to inform people of the funeral service details. Feel free to ask friends to help you spread the news as it is quite overwhelming to do so on your own. 

6. Choosing the Place of Burial

This was a difficult decision for the Li family because Mr. Li passed away before he could express his wishes.

Boston had been his home for his last 30 years and was where he raised his family, but China was where he grew up and was an equally significant part of who he was. Plus, he still has three living brothers in Shanghai. 

So how do you decide where your loved one’s soul will linger for the rest of time? My friend and her mom had to ask extremely difficult questions. It also required them to think about their futures and where they wanted to end up. Death really puts things into perspective…

In the end, my friend and her mom decided to bury Mr. Li here in the US, where he would be close to his wife and daughter and many friends from over the years.

After that gut-wrenching decision, we searched for a cemetery. We wanted to bury Mr. Li locally, so we made an appointment with the cemetery supervisor to show us the options for cremations.

Things to consider when choosing the cemetery:

Size of plot

How many people do you plan to bury in the same area? Will they be buried in a casket or in an urn? These details will help you determine how many plots you need to buy, especially if you plan on burying more family members in the same plot in the future. 

Grave marker

Do you want a headstone, which is what you normally see in cemeteries? Or a flat marker, which looks like a plaque laid in the ground and is much more affordable? Or, at our cemetery, a wall memorial so you don’t have to buy a separate flat marker or headstone, or deal with the foundations in the ground, etc. 

Whichever you choose and depending on the season (i.e. in snowy winters when the earth is wet, they wait until spring to build the foundations for the headstone), it takes some time to prepare the grave marker. 

I never noticed how many gravestone shops existed around Boston until it came to find one myself. Shop-owners will show you different options for shapes and sizes and engravings at different cost points, so depending on your tastes and budget, they will work with you to design the perfect headstone (takes 6-8 weeks). 

Budget

What is your budget? There is a wide price range for different grave options. For example, at our cemetery, the price differs for an urn grave opening and for a casket grave opening. It’s more expensive to bury your loved one if they’re in a casket because it takes up more space. It’s also more expensive if you set the burial time for a weekend or late afternoon because it’s considered over-time for cemetery workers. 

Once we decided on the cemetery, we picked out our plot, proved Mr. Li’s residency status (because the cemetery is for town residents only), signed a contract for the deed, mailed in a check, and waited to hear back from the funeral director about receiving the cremains before setting up a burial time. 

7. Arranging the Burial

• Arrange burial time with cemetery once your loved one’s cremains are returned to the funeral home
• Pick up urn from the funeral home (or pay extra to have it delivered to the cemetery)
• If you choose to have a service, inform friends and family of burial time 
• Cemetery Supervisor will lead you to the plot with the hole already dug
• We had a private burial with just 4 people. We lit candles, offered flowers and a home-cooked meal. We each said our goodbyes and threw a little dirt on the urn in the ground. 
• Visit every 7 days with offerings and incense burning for 49 days, the mourning period

As soon as the funeral director informed us that Mr. Li’s cremains was delivered back to the funeral home, we picked him up and called the cemetery supervisor to set up a time for the burial. They required a minimum of 24 hours of advanced notice. 

The funeral home provided us with a temporary grave marker while the gravestone was being prepared. 

We kept the burial a private affair with just family and without any service.

When we arrived at the cemetery we were greeted by the cemetery supervisor. He led us to the grave where there was a square hole in the ground, shallower than we expected, and a tarp of fake grass was laid out for us to use. We set the heavy green marble urn in the hole, laid flowers by its side, and lit candles. We took turns wishing Mr. Li a smooth journey to the Other World, where my own father would be waiting for him with a plate of steamed crab (Mr. Li’s favorite) and scooped dirt onto his urn. 

As per Buddhist customs (even though we are not Buddhist), the period of mourning lasts 49 days, so every 7 days for the next 49 days after his death, we would visit Mr. Li’s grave to offer him food and burn incense so that he has plenty of money, food, and other goods to thrive in heaven.

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If you’re reading this post, you already know that planning a funeral is a daunting task, no less a Chinese funeral. It’s completely overwhelming when you’re already suffering loss, and nobody teaches you how to do it; you learn by the painful process of doing. I really hope this blog post helps you understand what to expect and feel less overwhelmed by the process of planning a funeral. 

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or have more advice to add to this guide on how to plan a Chinese funeral (emily@dirtyelbows.com).

Good luck, my friend.