Kuo Hui-chun (郭慧君) is used to seeing people cheerfully plan their own funerals.
But even she was impressed by the enthusiasm and openness of the attendees at last Sunday’s “Death Cafe” session, especially with death still being a mostly taboo topic in Taiwanese society.
“The participants had many unconventional ideas, such as having the funeral by the ocean, in their home or at a place where they could then be buried together with their beloved pets,” she tells the Taipei Times. “They talked about what they would wear, which portrait they wanted to use... It was fantastic. Everyone had a great time.”
Photo: Liu Hsiao-hsin, Taipei Times
Kuo has led more than 700 Death Cafe events since 2014, incorporating board games she designed into the concept that originated in the UK. Last Sunday was the second of three sessions leading up to the Museum of World Religions’ “Bright as Night, Dark as Day, A Walk with the Death” (生死晝夜：於死亡中前行) exhibition, which opens today to mark the longest day of the year.
Each Death Cafe event has a different theme. The first one focused on writing a will, and the final event tomorrow will address the death of a pet. Kuo says that the sessions have become especially popular in the past two years as the COVID-19 pandemic and aging society have heightened the everyday presence of death.
Her goal of helping people face the inevitable in a positive and meaningful way aligns with the exhibition’s statement: “Our instinctual fear of death causes us to ignore the fact that it surrounds us everyday; in fact we’re constantly running away from it. But death and life go hand in hand, and if we want to discuss life, we must talk about death.”
AVOIDING DEATH
Many cultures avoid talking about death, but this avoidance is especially pronounced in Taiwan and other Han Chinese societies, Kuo says, to the point where family members often withhold terminal illness diagnoses from a loved one.
“We refuse to talk about it in the family, in school or in society. The fear and unwillingness to discuss death results in us losing the ability to do so. And that leads to us losing the ability to handle and face it,” she says.
Her inquiries as a child about certain taboos, such as looking away when passing a funeral home, were met with admonishment, and this continued even as an adult as her family discouraged her aging father from bringing up his funeral arrangements. You’re still healthy, they insisted.
“So I talked to him, and it was a great conversation,” she says. “There wasn’t anything negative about it. It was a very deep, spiritual exchange”
He died three years later. Kuo started thinking more about life-and-death education, and the virtual lack of it in Taiwan. She eventually enrolled in the Buddhist Nanhua University’s (南華大學) Life-and-Death Studies graduate program.
“Such programs are very rare, and I noticed that only religion-affiliated schools offered them,” she says. “But death isn’t something that should only be discussed through religion. Everyone has grandparents. We will all die one day. I wanted to take the concepts I learned and transform them into something fun to help the average person overcome their fears.”
After graduating, Kuo launched Taiwan’s edition of Death Cafe, where people got together to eat, drink tea and talk about death. At first, organizations who invited her were wary of upsetting the attendees, but soon she was speaking at elderly care centers and large corporations. The addition of board games in 2016 furthered the events’ popularity.
‘FUNERAL AUTONOMY’
One of Kuo’s more memorable moments was when a young man attended a funeral-planning session with his parents. It turns out, he had terminal cancer and they were planning his funeral.
“I was so moved,” she says. “It’s really not easy for Taiwanese parents to do this. Most would never even think of attending, because they don’t want to accept the fact that their son will die.”
As the author of the Ministry of Interior’s book, Modern Funeral Practices, she also hopes to overturn sexist or overly rigid traditions and promote “funeral autonomy.”
“Out of all the new perspectives toward life and death, the slowest to change is regarding funerals,” she says. “People don’t dare mess with tradition.”
Situations are still common where only sons can lead the ritual, where women are banned from attending their husband’s procession or where deceased unmarried women are not included in the family altar.
“Aside from equality, we also must learn to respect the wishes of the dying,” she adds.
But most importantly, Kuo hopes to bring life-and-death education into the school system, starting from preschool.
“Many parents might question why a child has to learn about [death],” she says. “[It’s because] they will eventually encounter it.”
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