Death and Dying
Alexa Mangabat
PSY375
April 23, 2014
Steve Weissman

Death and Dying My family is more of an Americanized culture, we do not do all the traditions of our culture when it comes to death and dying, because some of them we do not know. I come from a Filipino heritage who are mainly Catholics, and we base our funeral services and views on death and dying from the Catholic views. One tradition that we uphold from our culture back in the Philippines consists of the family and friends that attend the viewing to not wear black and mourn but to wear white to celebrate their life and to represent the angel that they have become. It is believed that during the services any child who was close to the deceased person to wear a hint of red in their clothing because red wards off spirits. If a child does not wear red in their clothing than the spirit can follow the child during the ceremony to stay close to them and the child can get sick. Beliefs fall under the religion, the main religion that Filipino’s follow is the Catholic religion, this includes the many prayers of the rosary that happens after death. The prayers begin the day after the death and goes on for seven days with family members. Another prayer takes place the 45th day after death and the one year anniversary of the death. Filipino’s also have a gathering or party on the one year death anniversary which is called “celebration of life” where you do the prayer of the rosary and then reminisce and celebrate that person’s life. The prayers are to God in order to help the spirit in heaven to relieve all of their sins. We hold a traditional American funeral service that includes an open casket for people to pay their respect, blessing of the casket from a priest, and the burial of the deceased. The burial includes Paul Bearer’s and add a flower on top of the lowered casket. After death, we believe that the person is a spirit that became a guardian angel that now watches over their family and friends. The culture I began to inquire about was the Mein heritage which is a nationality in Asia that derived from the Chinese. Their traditions consists of having a three day ceremony in the immediate families’ home where family members and friends come to visit but the immediate family does not leave the house. During the ceremony the family sacrifices a pig and then offer it to their ancestors so that the ancestors can lead that deceased person’s spirit in the right direction of happiness. They also begin to burn paper or money that everyone else bring to the family too, to help the family and the money that they burn represents the amount of money the deceased person will have in their afterlife. The Mein’s belief is that