Funeral
งานศพ or "GNAN SOP" means ceremony for deceased persons. A feast is organised to honor the deceased person. The ceremony date is scheduled by monks.
When somebody dies, the corpse is kept 7 days in the house before the cremation. During six evenings, monks come and pray. On the coffin, light garlands and a picture of the deceased person can be found. For poorer people, the dead body can be cremated between 3 to 7 days. The formalin used to reduce body decomposition is expensive for poor people.
Guests come, often dressed with dark clothes and sometimes a white shirt. Everybody greet each other. Waiters offer water or coke. From the first to the sixth day, monks come every evening around 7 p.m. On the seventh day cremation happens during the afternoon. Usually 4 monks are coming during the evening prayers. But number can vary depending on the status and rank of the deceased person. Then they summon incantations in Pali language during 30 minutes. When prayers are over, a car brings the monks back to their temple.
For important funeral, the family might rent some Traditional Thai orchestra.
One problem with dead persons with no relatives in Thailand is what to do with the unclaimed bodies. When bodies are unclaimed, nobody pays to cremate the corpses. Cremation of dead bodies is one of major aspect of Buddhism, it allows the soul to quit the body and to go to hell or heaven in order to wait to next reincarnation. In Thailand there are some charitable organisations that take the unclaimed bodies and bury them in their private cemetery. Each year many corpses are exhumed, monks are invited and a big burning ceremony is organised. In 1998, in one ceremony 40000 corpses were cremated. With economic recession, those foundations don't have enough money to buy more land in order to expand the location where bodies are buried. Some hospitals are full of unclaimed bodies and do not know what to do with them, so they warn about using garbage incinerator!