HW 47 - Peer Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

I interviewed a few of my friends about death. I am lucky to know people of different cultures and nationalities which allowed me to get to know different points of view.

- All of my interviewees said they were scared of death. This was for many different reasons. Lawrence (my Chinese classmate) said he was he was afraid, "because he feels he would be so lonely after he dies". On the other hand, my Venezuelan friend Andres is scared to die because he still has so many things to do in his life. 

- Most of my peers have never attended a funeral (unless you count flushing a pet fish down the toilet which, in a way, is a funeral). Out of all my interviewees, only Lawrence has been to a funeral. In his culture, it is a ritual "for 6-10 hours a day, for 3 consecutive days". He describes the experience as tedious and mentions that he can still remember the smell of the candles.

- My Polish friend, Paweł, experienced the death of three of his pets. He felt differently about each of them and thinks that, to him, the death of a pet would be like the death of his (nonexistent) brother. Andres also said that the death of a pet would be "completely devastating". Lawrence had a slightly different point of view. He said that, in the Chinese culture, the death of a pet would not be treated as emotionally as that of a family member.

- The most surprising answer out of all my interviews was Lawrence's, about being remembered after death. Andres and Paweł both said they want to be remembered. "I want people to say all the amazing stuff I did when I was alive" said Andres. Paweł mentioned that, if you are not remembered, it is almost as if you "didn't mean anything to anyone". Lawrence, however, said that he does not want to remembered if people are going to be sad when thinking about his death "I just don't like to cause other people's unhappiness".

Some of the answers I got were strongly based on culture and beliefs, while others were simply personal opinions. I found out things I never realized before (for example the Chinese funeral ritual which I want to research further on in this unit). On the other hand, some opinions and answers were very similar to my own. 

I felt strange asking my peers about death. When I usually talk to them, I think death is the one subject we try to avoid, but in this case, it was the main topic of our discussion. These interviews made me realize that there are as many views on death as there are people in the world. Everyone has a different opinion on the subject, whether it is because of their culture or simply just their personality.