LIVERPOOL, England: As a sociologist interested in how people make sense of death and the afterlife, the recent story of a 29-year-old woman who hosted her own living funeral stood out for me.
Michelle “Mike” Ng, who was terminally ill with ovarian cancer, held an intimate gathering for about 30 guests two days before Christmas last year. She died 10 days later.
“I wanted death to be close to our hearts, and not something to be feared,” said Michelle in videos and articles documented on Our Grandfather Story and HCA Hospice.
Her story inspired a commentary on CNA about how one needs to seize the day and, to slightly misquote Dylan Thomas, “rage against the dying of the light”.
Individuals, groups and societies have historically looked for ways to “tame” death. In premodern societies, where infant mortality was high and life expectancy was low, death was ever-present. Famine, war and disease all contributed to making life unpredictable and unplannable.
So rather than trying to YOLO, many individuals found ways to ensure that when death came for them, they would be ready (i.e. death would be “tamed”.) This might involve securing arrangements well in advance, having succession plans, or making peace with others.
One modern-day example of this was in Jiangxi province, where villagers had a long tradition of buying and storing coffins ahead of their death - often saving for years to purchase handcrafted wooden designs.
However, the authorities in the region in 2018 introduced a zero-burial policy to save land, resulting in coffins being smashed and destroyed, much to the population’s chagrin.
Today, how we cope with and tame death can be understood in a variety of ways.
Sociologically speaking, scholars like Tony Walter, Michael C Kearl and Glennys Howarth have mapped out what makes a good (and conversely a bad) death in the eyes of society.
These can be simplified in four ways - when, how, where and with whom. For example, “when” might denote the age one dies - a good death might be when one has lived a long enough life, so bad deaths might be when one has not lived enough (“premature” deaths) or been kept alive too long (“postmature” deaths).
File photo. Relatives at a funeral parlour. (Photo: Jason Quah/TODAY)
“Where” might denote the place one dies. Research by Scott Stonington in Thailand has shown that families prefer to have their loved ones treated palliatively in a hospital, but eventually die at home “to ensure a spiritually advantageous last breath”. Special ambulances have been set up to rush the dying back home so that this belief can be accomplished.
In Singapore, where annual deaths are expected to rise from around 24,000 in 2021 to 40,000 in 2040 amid an ageing population, there is scope for more conversations about death.
In 2019, a Singapore Management University study showed that while Singaporeans are getting more open talking about mortality, only 53 per cent of respondents said they were comfortable discussing their own death.
Michelle’s living funeral reveals to us how one might work towards making a “bad” death less “bad” and more “good”. By choosing to have a living funeral, she exercised her own agency over time and place. She invited her friends - again having a choice over “who” she wanted to spend her last days with.
In the modern world, death often becomes something that we want to innovate our way out of. This is reflective of a global trend involving the medicalisation of society - where solutions to both living and dying are rooted in medical solutions.
Where religion was once the primary way of creating narratives of life after death, technology now competes in many advanced economies.
Across the world, individuals have hired companies to cryogenically freeze their bodies post-death in the hope that future technology will allow them to be revived and live forever.
About 500 bodies are currently stored in giant tanks of liquid nitrogen awaiting revival, with the youngest being a 2-year-old Thai girl.
For those who do not have the money to freeze their whole body, DIY and how-to guides have also sprung up on the internet. Some choose, reminiscent of the cartoon Futurama, to freeze just their heads.
I am unsure if one really wants to live forever as a floating head, but sociologically speaking, this trend demonstrates to us the extent that many will go to challenge, deny or defeat death.
In this situation, death is portrayed as a direct adversary, something to be avoided, feared, sequestered or denied at all costs. While we indeed want to live healthily for as long as possible, and that early and violent deaths are certainly something we do not want, at some point we must accept death for what it is - a natural next step in life.
In Singapore, our reaction to death appears to be one mixed with religious beliefs and modern “solutions”. Even though we have not gone as far as freezing heads, technology now plays a big part in working to extend and improve the quality of our lives - step counters, sleep monitors and health screening are just some examples of this.
But underneath the glossy layer of medicalisation, belief and practices in the afterlife still play a significant role in many individuals’ worldviews of death.
Together with Kit Ying Lye and Janice Kam at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, we recently completed a project documenting Chinese religious funeral practices in Singapore.
We interviewed funeral directors as well as members of the public, and found a noticeable level of continuity that culture and religion play when it comes to dealing with death.
Funeral rituals, especially, often remain highly symbolic in retaining the individuality of the deceased and transferring their status from elder to ancestor.
Community initiatives can also make death less scary. In Singapore, these initiatives are often spearheaded by a rising generation of funeral directors, artists and civil society activists who are not afraid to discuss death in the public domain.
Research by anthropologist Jill J Tan has shown how a decade-long project like “Both Sides, Now” by ArtsWok Collaborative (together with Drama Box until 2022) has engaged seniors all over Singapore to develop art and have conversations based on “living well” and “leaving well”.
Then there are also campaigns such as Dying to Talk and Living Wishes by students of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) that encourage people to speak to their parents about death at home.
Similar projects are at work around the world like The Good Grief Festival in the United Kingdom, which seeks to bring artists, scholars and writers together to explore different facets of death in modern society. Here, panellists do not just talk about death in an abstract, biological way, but really consider death from sympathetic, creative viewpoints that in some ways, gives life to death.
Death is never easy to talk about, think about, or even engage emotionally with. But unless we want to live life in fear of death, we must become more creative about taming death.
The answers to this are not just in science and technology, but in the things that make us human - our creativity, empathy and emotions.
Terence Heng is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. His new co-edited book, Death and the Afterlife: Multidisciplinary Perspectives in a Global City (Routledge 2024), will be launched at the National Library of Singapore in June.
Continue reading...
Michelle “Mike” Ng, who was terminally ill with ovarian cancer, held an intimate gathering for about 30 guests two days before Christmas last year. She died 10 days later.
“I wanted death to be close to our hearts, and not something to be feared,” said Michelle in videos and articles documented on Our Grandfather Story and HCA Hospice.
Her story inspired a commentary on CNA about how one needs to seize the day and, to slightly misquote Dylan Thomas, “rage against the dying of the light”.
TAMING DEATH
Individuals, groups and societies have historically looked for ways to “tame” death. In premodern societies, where infant mortality was high and life expectancy was low, death was ever-present. Famine, war and disease all contributed to making life unpredictable and unplannable.
So rather than trying to YOLO, many individuals found ways to ensure that when death came for them, they would be ready (i.e. death would be “tamed”.) This might involve securing arrangements well in advance, having succession plans, or making peace with others.
One modern-day example of this was in Jiangxi province, where villagers had a long tradition of buying and storing coffins ahead of their death - often saving for years to purchase handcrafted wooden designs.
However, the authorities in the region in 2018 introduced a zero-burial policy to save land, resulting in coffins being smashed and destroyed, much to the population’s chagrin.
“GOOD” AND “BAD” DEATHS
Today, how we cope with and tame death can be understood in a variety of ways.
Sociologically speaking, scholars like Tony Walter, Michael C Kearl and Glennys Howarth have mapped out what makes a good (and conversely a bad) death in the eyes of society.
These can be simplified in four ways - when, how, where and with whom. For example, “when” might denote the age one dies - a good death might be when one has lived a long enough life, so bad deaths might be when one has not lived enough (“premature” deaths) or been kept alive too long (“postmature” deaths).
File photo. Relatives at a funeral parlour. (Photo: Jason Quah/TODAY)
“Where” might denote the place one dies. Research by Scott Stonington in Thailand has shown that families prefer to have their loved ones treated palliatively in a hospital, but eventually die at home “to ensure a spiritually advantageous last breath”. Special ambulances have been set up to rush the dying back home so that this belief can be accomplished.
In Singapore, where annual deaths are expected to rise from around 24,000 in 2021 to 40,000 in 2040 amid an ageing population, there is scope for more conversations about death.
In 2019, a Singapore Management University study showed that while Singaporeans are getting more open talking about mortality, only 53 per cent of respondents said they were comfortable discussing their own death.
Michelle’s living funeral reveals to us how one might work towards making a “bad” death less “bad” and more “good”. By choosing to have a living funeral, she exercised her own agency over time and place. She invited her friends - again having a choice over “who” she wanted to spend her last days with.
Related:
DEALING WITH DEATH IN MODERN SOCIETY
In the modern world, death often becomes something that we want to innovate our way out of. This is reflective of a global trend involving the medicalisation of society - where solutions to both living and dying are rooted in medical solutions.
Where religion was once the primary way of creating narratives of life after death, technology now competes in many advanced economies.
Across the world, individuals have hired companies to cryogenically freeze their bodies post-death in the hope that future technology will allow them to be revived and live forever.
About 500 bodies are currently stored in giant tanks of liquid nitrogen awaiting revival, with the youngest being a 2-year-old Thai girl.
For those who do not have the money to freeze their whole body, DIY and how-to guides have also sprung up on the internet. Some choose, reminiscent of the cartoon Futurama, to freeze just their heads.
I am unsure if one really wants to live forever as a floating head, but sociologically speaking, this trend demonstrates to us the extent that many will go to challenge, deny or defeat death.
In this situation, death is portrayed as a direct adversary, something to be avoided, feared, sequestered or denied at all costs. While we indeed want to live healthily for as long as possible, and that early and violent deaths are certainly something we do not want, at some point we must accept death for what it is - a natural next step in life.
Related:
DEATH AND RELIGION IN SINGAPORE
In Singapore, our reaction to death appears to be one mixed with religious beliefs and modern “solutions”. Even though we have not gone as far as freezing heads, technology now plays a big part in working to extend and improve the quality of our lives - step counters, sleep monitors and health screening are just some examples of this.
But underneath the glossy layer of medicalisation, belief and practices in the afterlife still play a significant role in many individuals’ worldviews of death.
Together with Kit Ying Lye and Janice Kam at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, we recently completed a project documenting Chinese religious funeral practices in Singapore.
We interviewed funeral directors as well as members of the public, and found a noticeable level of continuity that culture and religion play when it comes to dealing with death.
Funeral rituals, especially, often remain highly symbolic in retaining the individuality of the deceased and transferring their status from elder to ancestor.
THE ROLE OF ARTS AND COMMUNITY IN TACKLING DEATH TABOOS
Community initiatives can also make death less scary. In Singapore, these initiatives are often spearheaded by a rising generation of funeral directors, artists and civil society activists who are not afraid to discuss death in the public domain.
Research by anthropologist Jill J Tan has shown how a decade-long project like “Both Sides, Now” by ArtsWok Collaborative (together with Drama Box until 2022) has engaged seniors all over Singapore to develop art and have conversations based on “living well” and “leaving well”.
Then there are also campaigns such as Dying to Talk and Living Wishes by students of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) that encourage people to speak to their parents about death at home.
Similar projects are at work around the world like The Good Grief Festival in the United Kingdom, which seeks to bring artists, scholars and writers together to explore different facets of death in modern society. Here, panellists do not just talk about death in an abstract, biological way, but really consider death from sympathetic, creative viewpoints that in some ways, gives life to death.
Death is never easy to talk about, think about, or even engage emotionally with. But unless we want to live life in fear of death, we must become more creative about taming death.
The answers to this are not just in science and technology, but in the things that make us human - our creativity, empathy and emotions.
Terence Heng is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. His new co-edited book, Death and the Afterlife: Multidisciplinary Perspectives in a Global City (Routledge 2024), will be launched at the National Library of Singapore in June.
Continue reading...