[Tlc] Final Night of Roxanna's Thai Funeral

[Jennifer Gampell]

Dear TLC and friends of Roxanna Brown:

I went to the final night of Roxanna's 5-night funeral ceremony on Saturday (26 June) at a small temple in central Bangkok. (The non-cremation cremation took place on Sunday afternoon, but I didn't attend.) Though the temple was located a short taxi ride from Chatuchak Weekend Market, it was in one of those off-the-beaten-track and extremely local parts of town that always amaze me when I end up in one. This is the Bangkok that hasn't been inundated with horrific highrise condominium projects or ugly shopping malls. (As we twisted and turned through the narrow backstreets, our driver helpfully pointed out a local casino!)

The temple was small and unpretentious and in true Thai fashion, several other funeral ceremonies were happening concurrently. Ours was a small and very Thai gathering, including the head of Bangkok University, Surat Osathanugrah's wife and several other people in the upper echelons of the university. My friend and I were the only two "farangs" present. (This entitled us to the dubious honor of being seated inside the little sala on the "special guest" wooden chairs facing the coffin.)

Jaime welcomed us and walked us through the incense/obeisance etiquette (one stick of incense instead of the usual three for reasons I don't know). Understandably he was looking pretty exhausted, but at the same time seemed happy to be surrounded by members of his Thai family.

Four monks were on hand for the initial three rounds of chanting, followed by a snack and a final chant. I'd always thought you needed odd numbers of chanting monks at ceremonies but learned that odd numbers are only for felicitous occasions (house blessings, marriages etc.). The protocol for sad events like funerals requires even numbers of monks.

Dunno if anyone's interested, but I took a few pictures for those who knew Roxanna and/or have never attended a Thai funeral. The coffin itself was hard to shoot because of all the bright lights surrounding it, but I think you can get a sense of the general ambiance of the ceremony which is totally different from a US one.

Five years ago I wrote a piece called "Four Barstools and a Funeral" in the Asian Wall Street Journal about another Thai funeral I attended that made ahuge impression on me. It's on my website, http://gampell.com/wong.htm, should anyone care to read it.

Jennifer Gampell
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