A cemetery thread.

[sabang]

A Chinese mausoleum in Manila. I'll have more to say about these particular obscenities after a good nights sleep.

[Dougal]

Malabar Hill in Mumbai is a popular park which was created by putting a concrete surface over a reservoir which feeds Mumbai with water.

Next to the park behind high walls is the Paris cemetery known as the Towers of Silence. Parsis worship fire and don't cremate their dead and also believe that burial contaminates the earth. The solution is to leave bodies in the open to be devoured by vultures.

Legend has it that the reservoir had to be covered because of the vultures dropping the odd body part into the water.

A chronic shortage of vultures in Mumbai is currently causing the traditionalists in Mumbai to have to rethink their strategy. Apparently it now takes up to a year for bodies to decompose

I don't recommend a visit.

[sabang]

Afew more mausoleums in the Chinese cemetery in Manila- it's worth a visit if you go there.



This ones done to look like the Cultural centre of the Philippines-



This one even has it's own parking garage. They are furnished inside to- it's all to do with some mumbo jumbo of having comforts in the afterlife.



The particular obscenity is that just outside the cemetery you had the infamous 'smoky mountain' area of the Tondo slums. This was a massive garbage dump that the poor used to build shanties on and scavenge off to survive. Tondo is still largely slums, but smoky mountain is gone. If a wretch from smoky mountain had even tried to enter the Chinese cemetery back then, he would have just been summarily shot and his body cast back on the dump. This was 1987.

[chinthee]

One of my favourite cemeteries to stroll in is Père-Lachaise in Paris. I've visited it many times, and
I like to visit the graves of La Fontaine, Moliere, and of course, the great Jim Morrison of the Doors.



Where today, people still make pilgramages to visit it, and place all sorts of peace offerings on his grave.

[sabang]

^ Lovely. I must admit, if you are not spooked by all those buried cadavers (I'm not), old cemeteries are fascinating and beautiful places to wander around.

[sabang]

This mausoleum is called the 'baby Taj' in Agra:-


Chairman Mao's mausoleum:-

[sabang]

Some more nice mausoleums in the Chinese cemetery, manila-



And Smoky Mountain, a few hundered meteres away.





One of my most moving travel experiences seeing these two places back to back. There was a big poster advertising a visiting American evangelist on the main road going through Smoky Mountain- but the road was half covered in garbage, boy it stunk. Actually they were all over Manila.

Anyway, there was this bloke knelt there praying before the image of the evangelist, for some miracle. He obviously could not afford the ten peso's or whatever to go and see the evangelist, not even the jeepney fare there without costing his family much needed food. It is astonishing how people can maintain their faith under these conditions, and these stark contrasts to the cemetery over the big wall. I wonder how many of them knew what was there, and what they thought about it.
I wonder where that bloke is now?

[Jet Gorgon]

I used to visit cemeteries alot, even on trips. Like Chinthee, I went to a few in Paris. Mostly I went to ones in Japan, where some of my favourite authors were interred. Ask for a broom to clean the gravesite, pick some weeds, light incense, leave some flowers, and pray for their spirit and their guidance. Then you always leave a pebble on the lantern/gravestone to show you were there.

This is a great site to find the graves and info of famous people all over the world.
Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records and Online Memorials&

Oh ya, for a really funny movie, try The Funeral (Ososhiki) by Juzo Itami.

[Happyman]

Cemeteries have different effects on different people.

1) When My boy was 6 or 7 he was into toy guns / army uniforms / playing war games with his chums.
Took the kids to Belgium to see some friends and en-route took them to a couple of WW1 cemeteries.
The lad said nothing but when we got home - without a word to anyone - he got all his toy guns etc and dumped them in the bin- when asked why he just said "don't want the nasty things!" and never mentioned it again !

2. Had a friend in UK and his mother was in her 90's.
She lost her brother at Gallipoli and never knew where he was buiried.
I was working in Malta at the time and my friend said a lot of Gallipoli wounded that died in hospital were buried there.
Went to the museum - found his name in a register - found the grave - took photos and a video and sent them back to him.
The old lady died a month or two later and in her will left my kids each 100GBP for ice cream !

3) Bukit China in Malacca is a place to wander around and have a peaceful time - reputedly the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China - in the middle of town but the wild life and birds are great !

Just a few thoughts !

[sabang]

Arlington National Cemetery. Many a soldier buried here.

[Jet Gorgon]

1) When My boy was 6 or 7 he was into toy guns / army uniforms / playing war games with his chums.
Took the kids to Belgium to see some friends and en-route took them to a couple of WW1 cemeteries.
The lad said nothing but when we got home - without a word to anyone - he got all his toy guns etc and dumped them in the bin- when asked why he just said "don't want the nasty things!" and never mentioned it again !

Wow, perscipacious little boy.

Thanks for those pics, Sabang. My second cousin (great aunt's son) is buried at the US cemetery near Anzio-Nettuno. I made it my duty to visit the place before leaving London, as none of the fam was able to go. The military Attache at the US Embassy arranged everything for me. Such lovely grounds but so very sad -- I doubt anyone goes there much. My flowers were the only spot of colour against the green and white.
The US has a website to find soldiers' gravesites:
American Battle Monuments Commission

This is a snap of the memorial, but only shows a few markers.

[Zavier38]

Does anyone know what's happening to the Christian cemetery on Silom in BKK? Used to be (20 years ago) a tropical version of Highgate......today the headstones and memorials are mostly smashed, sems like bulldozed. I even saw some odd bones lying around where the graves had been dis-intered a couple of years back, it seems to have been systematically vandalised, presumably by a developer as I guess the land's worth something, how many thais are gonna buy on a cemetery? Made me realise what a charming bunch the thais actually were. Is cultural sensitivity a totally one way street as far as the thais are concerned? (Must take your shoes of inside and no pointing blah blah but no problem to desecrate a farang cemetery....) Who's responsible for this place? I wonder how Somchai and his pals would feel if a developer dozed Wimbledon temple to build a new condo?

[Marmite the Dog]

Is cultural sensitivity a totally one way street as far as the thais are concerned?

Yes. Ignorance reigns supreme in the Land of Stupidity.

[peterpan]

who is responsible for digging up this dead thread ?

[Dalton]

^ One very bored guy..