The corpse in the courtyard

Actually, it's gone now. But for four days, I was living smack in the center of a Chinese funeral.

It started with several big tourist vans rolling up to eject crowds of people, some wearing wacky white Ku-Kluxy hats (which turned out to signify family members of the deceased), who promptly erected a tent village in the courtyard. Myself, I would have thought the ambiance in my apartment complex, which is the apex of that celebrated Soviet style of architecture that prominently features gray concrete boxes, would be a bit lacking for funeral festivities.

There was a veritable field of enormous paper wreaths, an all-purpose celebratory decoration for events ranging from weddings to, apparently, funerals. And of course the kazoo corps - two very old men who sat at a card table set up directly under Beth's window, and somehow managed to wring the sound of a duck's death squalls from their battered horns. All day. Every day. Starting at 7 a.m.

On the second day, there was a procession wherein the entire group lined up with a long white sheet held over their heads and, led by the trumpet-kazoos, paraded 200 yards down the street to the exercise yard, where someone lit a bonfire of yellow cloth, as well as smaller fires up and down the street. (Why, yes, it would have been quite the fire hazard, if not for all that excellent concrete).

I figured that would about wrap up the merry-making, but they camped out in my courtyard for two more days, kazoos and all. And, according to the infallible wisdom of the Internets, the body is usually kept outside with the mourning party during these shindigs.

Which is not creepy at all, of course.