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In the Chinese Cemetery, on All Saint's Day, you can basically see the same scenes as in all the other cemeteries around the country.
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Secret formulas, sacred writings and magic powers, some 2,000 years ago Chinese invented and perfected the art of paper. They used paper to communicate with gods and goddesses in other worlds. Over centuries, paper replaced previous clay, bronze, jade, silk and gold ritual objects and became a symbolic offering to deities and deceased ancestors. Paper, after all, could be pasted, folded, cut and painted to look like any object desired. Paper, sacred and precious, held surprises and mysteries especially when burned, transforming daily messages to the spirit world. Thousands of varieties of these papers, known as joss, spirit, or money paper, fu or lucky charms, paper gods exists today.
(Source: Jocelyn's Web Site )
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The family of the deceased is expected to
bring food and fruits to the cemetery. If not, ill will on the part of the
family may result.
Aside from food, the relatives must offer
gold or silver paper money to the dead. This "money" is burned when
the food is offered. The Chinese believe the dead don't have enough to eat in
heaven which is the reason why the living have to continue sending offerings
even after many years.
Chinese Cemetery and All Soul's Day
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Please note that those pictures were taken on an ordinary day and not during All Saint's Day.
The welfare for the family has for many Chinese people a strong reference to the past, because the deceased family-members are also included. This back orientation and the death transgressing esteem is also known as ancestor worship.
Most Tsinoy (Chinese Filipinos) families take the compliances of the funeral rites – mostly an amalgamation of Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist rituals - very seriously. Inappropriate funeral-rites, the forgetting of a dead family member, can bring illness, misfortune and misery to the still living relatives. There is the belief that the spirits of the ancestors still have authority. But these spirits can also protect the family and can change favourably the way things go, if they receive sacrifices, humility-gestures, atonements and prayers of supplication. Feelings of fear and worship determine the bereaved family members.
These beliefs explain the enormous spending, which many Chinese practice with regard to funerals - especially in Manila, Singapore or Hong Kong. To honour the dead person is one intention, to demonstrate the economic status of the family is the other one. The burial-expenditure is high. It varies however and depends on the age, the sex, the marital status and the wealth of the deceased person. There is a kind of hierarchy also in the degree of external honour and salute. Following the traditional-conservative rite the patriarch of family is at the top, followed by his woman, singles and children.
The Chinese graveyard of Manila with its unique and splendid shrines and mausoleums is for some observers the most conspicuous , maybe because it stands in strong contrast with the near slum-areas of Santa Cruz.
The cemetery was founded by the former gobernadorcillo Lim Ong and Tan Quien Sien about 1850. It should be the graveyard for such dead persons whose mortal remains could not be brought to the Chinese mainland. The foundation was also necessary because the Catholic church refused burials of non-converted people in Catholic cemeteries. In the meantime the cemetery has become a historical place because it is also the place where Tsinoy resistance fighters have been executed by the Japanese in the World War II. Now it is open for Chinese and Tsinoys of all social classes and religions. That’s the reason why statues of Maria side by side with Chinese dragons and snakes could also be seen.
The cemetery has the size of 54 hectares. An exterior wall, which can reach the height of ten meters at the foot of the hill and which is also secured with barbed wire, restricts the cemetery. The wall, entry controllers, caretakers and even watchdogs in some mausoleums protect from unwanted funeral visitors and thieves. The exterior wall also contains round about 10.000 simple grave-niches or drawer-tombs of died persons, whose families were less wealthy or even poor. Because there is a limited place, the prizes for “better” areas are also getting higher and higher.
Paved streets with addresses structure the terrain. The three-story crematory is next to the temple and here are especially cremated the remains of the dead person, whose ashes are brought to the mother-country China.
The most extravagant, partially two-storied grave-mausoleums and grave-temples are located in the Millionaire's Row and the Little Beverly Hills. Some are supposed to have cost more than a half million dollars, therefore they are guarded round the clock. Mailboxes, radio- and television-antennas still belong to the simpler inventory. Further practical benefits for the visitors and the few continuous inhabitants are electric power, cold and hot water supply, air-conditioning equipments, kitchens, baths and refrigerators. More splendid equipped grave-villas can show gardens with a swimming pool or a Koi-carp pond. Curved stairs lead to balconies on the second floor. Ground, walls and ceilings are frequently covered with fine marble. A mausoleum is completely made of shining, stainless steel. Coloured glass windows, gold-leaf-ornamentations, crystal-lights or Chinese statues and pictures are further ornamental elements. In the center are situated the sacrophages of the deceased persons. Mostly there are two sepulchres beneath big portraits of the dead persons.
(Source:© Wolfgang Bethge )
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Since it's supposed to be about spending time with dead relatives, families usually camp in cemeteries, and sometimes spend a night or two near their relatives' tombs. Card games, eating, drinking, singing and dancing are common activities in the cemetery, probably to alleviate boredom. It is considered a very important holiday by many Filipinos (after Christmas and Holy Week), and additional days are normally given as special nonworking holidays.
(Source: Wikipedia )
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In many cases people who bring food to the tombs don’t just bring food for their own consumption. They also set aside portions as offerings for the dead, believing that somehow the dead still have a way of partaking in the earthly feast. This reinforces a bit the perception that Filipinos seem to feel right at home with those who have passed on before us. They actually believe that the departed are right there sharing the feast with them.
(Source: Friar Jack Wintz E-spirations )
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You have to give it to the Filipino joviality and sense of fun to always find something to celebrate even in the most somber or gloomy situations. Any big gathering of relatives could be such an occasion, be it a gathering for a baptism, wedding, funeral or, in this case, honoring the dead. Filipino families being quite extended, these gatherings are unique occasions where one meets 'long lost kin' and gets updated on one another’s life. The continuing bond of the living is extended to the dead relatives and it is renewed on this yearly occasion. Beyond praying for their beloved dead, they gather to renew family relationships with them. Filipinos thereby assure themselves and their deceased that they are not forgotten or apart from them even though the living moved on with their lives. Thus it is an occasion for celebration.
(Source: Friar Jack Wintz E-spirations )
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The impression that the Filipinos are spending their day partying and celebrating at the cemetery suggests that their way of visiting deceased relatives is more joyful—and less somber—than it might be for some Americans or Europeans. The gathering of Filipinos around their tombs in a festive, picnic-like atmosphere seems to be the opposite of morbid or gloomy. Filipinos seem to feel right at home with those who have passed on before them.
(Source: Friar Jack Wintz E-spirations )
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The cemeteries in the Philippines, as a rule, do not consist of neat plots of grass with gravestones marking the presence of the deceased buried there below the earth. Here many of the dead are laid to rest above ground in mausoleums (often white) of different sizes, some large enough to house the remains of many persons in separate compartments. Those who come to spend All Saints Day with their deceased relatives, therefore, gather together in this kind of setting. They come to find a place to sit on ledges or in the niches between the tombs. Here the families share food and stories or even games together in a party-like atmosphere.
(Source: Friar Jack Wintz E-spirations )
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Sellers of flowers and candles are doing brisk business.
The joyful and celebratory spirit that marks the Filipino version of the ‘Day of the Dead’ is a nationwide phenomenon. Here it is celebrated on November 1 instead of November 2 (All Souls Day). There were several attempts by well-known pastors to try to ‘correct’ the practice—that is, to get people to observe November 2 as the real ‘All Souls Day’ or ‘Day of the Dead,’ but the practice has stuck on November 1. Old folks say it’s always been that way, so it’s a national tradition that spans decades, if not centuries!
It looks like we have two days instead of one to celebrate the Day of the Dead, although the government only recognizes November 1 as the national holiday (in accord with the popular practice).
(Source: Friar Jack Wintz E-spirations )
