Funerals in Hanoi

If you spend any time in Hanoi you will see a notice posted on different walls at any given time during the month. The paper is a death notice and it tells the community that someone has died and gives all the information. Below is the notice that we saw on our neighbors wall 2 days ago and then today we saw them preparing for the funeral.  It was NOT our neighbor who died, but a family member.

 Im not sure why they wear what they do, but what you wear depends on what generation or distance you are from the deceased.  Often when you are driving down some of the narrow roads, the whole road is blocked with a big blue tent and then you know that a funeral is in progress.

 50 days after the funeral we saw these table and chairs being delivered in front of our house. Our grandmother next door said it is the 50 day observation of the deceased and the tent will be put up in front of our house. Little did we know exactly what that meant. Below is the tent that was put up. It was so interesting to see. The tent took up our whole road and since we only have 1 front door the only way out was to open the door and see all the mourning Vietnamese eating lunch and observing this momentous occasion. I wish I had taken pictures of what it looked like when we opened the door, but it was awkward enough to open the door and be stared at let alone take a picture of it. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Luckily the tent was put up on Sunday afternoon. The funeral was Monday afternoon and by 3pm everything was being cleaned up.