Chinese Death Rituals in Singapore

In recent years Singapore society has undergone a rapid process of modernization and industrialization which has vastly changed the physical and cultural milieu of the Chinese, and yet the Chinese in Singapore are still ready to incur huge expenses in the enactment of death rituals. Viewing the rituals as heightened activities which conflate, refract and highlight the most important values of the Chinese, this book examines the changes and adaptations in Chinese death rituals and accounts for the continuing significance of death rituals in an increasingly industrialized, technologically orientated society. Through a cultural analysis of the symbols of death--flesh, blood, bones, souls, time numbers, food and money--Chinese Death Rituals in Singaporethrows light upon the Chinese perception of death and how they cope with its eventuality. In the seeming mass of religious rituals and beliefs, it suggests that there is an underlying logic to the rituals. This in turn leads Kiong to examine theinterrelationship between death and the socioeconomic value system of China as a whole. Based upon primary research this work is the first comprehensive study of Chinese death rituals in an urban setting. Its analysis of the development and adaptation of a traditional religious belief in a modernizing society will interest all students of Asian religions as well as Asian anthropologists and sociologists.

Tong Chee-Kiong teaches at the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.