Trip planning, afterlife work for the living, musings...

[elusivek]

Nope, not for myself. I am in no hurry to go on a holiday now, I need to recuperate my bank account. I have my eye on a certain little handbag which I'm still on the fence about. But it's an old model which I'm not even sure if stock is still available or not. It's a cross body sling bag thing, on the small side. It clips on with a long-type wallet, the wallet can be detached and used as just a wallet, or it can be attached back to the sling bag which would make the sling bag look a bit bulky. My cousin has it and I checked, it's secure. It's not overly expensive but it would be really convenient for going out at night and/or traveling, I guess. Still thinking. But if it's out of stock then I don't have to think so much about it. I had been thinking about that bag for almost 2 years, so it's probably too late anyway.

So I've been helping my parents plan their upcoming summer trip to Portugal and Austria. My mom is being all domineering again and saying there's nothing to do in Austria and she has no access to anything, restaurants or entertainment, if she is to stay at my dad's hometown, and that she wants to stay in the city. My dad is now mad as he's going to Austria to go back home, not touring. Ah, clash of intents. I'm siding with dad here, and I'm trying to convince mom to let it be. My dad had planned to stay 6 weeks in Austria, but my mom had already bullied him to spending 4 weeks in Portugal and less than 2 weeks in Austria (poor, poor dad).

oh yeah, today I also went to see my Grandma being unearthed. We have a limited land problem here, so you can never buy a gravesite, you can only rent it from the government. All rents are for 7 years, where then you get dug out, and if you haven't decomposed fully, you can buried again for an extra year, and by the end of the 8th year it doesn't matter how your state of decomposition is, you simply have to get out. Your bones will be washed clean and then sun-dried and put into a box, where then you get put into a drawer grave. I'm not sure if you can buy the drawer space though. But yeah, so my Grandma has decomposed nicely, she had bloody good dentures as those are still intact. It was interesting to see the unearthing.

My boss and other colleagues at work all look horrified when I said I was going to see my Grandma get dug up. I understand Chinese people being horrified, but I thought the English loved all these macabre stuff. Not my boss, apparently, haha. He was totally spooked.

So after Grandma gets cleaned up and dried, there's going to be a bit of a rearrangement of the remains of a few relatives. An uncle is getting out of Grandpa's drawer so that Grandma can go with Grandpa, then uncle will get relocated to another drawer with his wife or next to his with (I think my cousin managed to get 2 drawers next to each other).

With all this fuss and work, probably it's best to get cremated. I suppose.

Comments

[carriea31.livejournal.com]

Wow! I've never heard of renting the space where you are buried!! I know we've only just met on here so I have some catching up to do. Where do you live?

[carriea31.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. I think I see it on your bio..China?

[notte0.livejournal.com]

Yes, Macau is considered part of China but officially it's just a Special Administrative Region (it's just our own nose-in-the-air cocky way of trying to say "We are part of China, but we are not really part of China"). It's like the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, they are part of China, (but not really part of China).

Macau was a Portuguese colony (whereas Hong Kong was a British colony).

[oakfarm2.livejournal.com]

One could lose grave space after some years here too, but since we're much more sparly populated I guess it less common.

Anyway, what can one do in Austria for six weeks, or even just two, if I may ask?

[notte0.livejournal.com]

Well, my Dad is going back to visit his family, so I don't know what he plans to do for 2 weeks or 6 weeks. I think I heard he wanted to help his brother out at the garden, they made a ferret caged area before for my sister's ferrets a couple years back, complete with a lake and some sort of irrigation system. Now there are no more ferrets, so my uncle wants to remove the caged area, but keep the lake as it actually looks nice.

His this brother (Peter) has some degenerative spinal problem, but he's also the only one who is in this town with his eldest brother, the one who can't walk (Fritz), and the other 2 brothers are not in that town, so Peter is expected to do all the chores and heavy lifting for Fritz despite his condition.

So I guess if my dad goes spend 6 weeks in Austria he's basically going to be helping out the family for 6 weeks (going to water the flowers at his parents' gravesite, maintain the garden, do Fritz's laundry/house cleaning/whatever) etc...

When I was in Austria 2 years ago, for around 2 weeks, I managed to travel in a full circle, visiting a few places - Vienna > Graz > St Michael (dad's hometown) > Salzburg > Innsbruck > Vienna. I intend to return some years later and do a similar thing again but visiting different cities (with the obligatory stop at St Michael)

[eyesonstars.livejournal.com]

Do the majority of people choose the burial/drawer space there? Or is cremation considered a younger person's option?
I'm hearing that here my generation and after is kind of starting to consider the cremation option more.
After all you can convert the ashes to rosary beads or even pressurize?the ashes further to create a sort of gemstone to wear as jewelry.

[notte0.livejournal.com]

The impression I get is the Chinese people mostly choose to get cremated (perhaps because they tend to put the ashes in urns and then set up an altar at home?), whereas those of Portuguese descent or somehow with western influence tend to be buried, perhaps because in their faith, cremation = burning = fire = hell.

A new trend that's coming in from Taiwan is to get cremated and then the ashes are buried with a tree, as if the tree is your tombstone/resting place. There still isn't much of "tree" option here in Macau but I've heard some rumours about it being set up.

A lot of these "drawer" space is being built and being traded/sold/auctioned like real estate or stocks. It's really crazy, but I guess people want to have a proper "resting place". For me it's like if I'm dead, I wouldn't know where or how or what has been done to me anyway.... but... better not challenge a group mentality...

[eyesonstars.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was thinking perhaps you were under China's influence in regards to cremations/burials. My mistake, lol.
If I recall correctly, a film I recently saw, Trash, had a burial-drawer space as sort of an anonymous bank vault/hiding spot.

That's a nice idea for the ashes to be buried with trees so there would be pleasant visiting spots for the living left behind. I've heard that ashes are like a fertilizer for plants so I've told my niece/nephew that they can use my ashes for some plants if they wanted to or whatever.

I also doubt any of us would really care what is done with our bodies/shells when we're dead.