Chinese Funerals

The Green Street Marching Band and attendant funereal ceremonies are a continuation of a San Francisco Chinatown tradition that's over 100 years old. Probably the largest procession ever seen in San Francisco's Chinatown was that of Tom Kim Yung (1858- 1903), military attaché to the Chinese delegation to the United States.

  
Still from the 1903  film of
an important Chinese funeral in San Francisco's Chinatown.

The funeral procession was held September 23, 1903 on Dupont Street, then known to the Chinese as Dupon Gai, or "slatboard capital street." Today, Dupon Gai is known as San Francisco's famous Grant Avenue. You can view an early film of the funeral procession at the Library of Congress' Digital Library Web page, San Francisco Chinese Funeral.

Real history buffs will enjoy Linda Sun Crowder's detailed and scholarly article, "Mortuary Practices in San Francisco Chinatown". The article is a revision of one that appeared in Chinese America, History and Perspective 1999, the journal of the Chinese Historical Society of America.

Chinatown, a one-hour documentary aired in 1997, was produced by San Francisco's public television station, KQED, for a series called "Neighborhoods: the Hidden Cities of San Francisco". The show tells "the story of a neighborhood; an American neighborhood, an old neighborhood, an immigrant neighborhood, where the old country still lives inside the new one." This comprehensive history includes interviews with Wilson Wong, who was one of the original members of the Cathay Boy's Band and was a strong supporter of today's Green Street Band traditions.

The Cathay Club Marching Band (the first Chinese American band), was formed in 1911 and sponsored by  San Francisco’s oldest Chinatown organization, the Cathay Club. For many years, the Cathay Club Marching Band played concerts in the park every Sunday and for funerals or parades through Chinatown. Some members went on the famous Orpheum Theater Circuit as an ethnic vaudeville act until World War II took most of the band away in the draft.

You can also learn more about Chinese funeral customs and beliefs on a page from the UK, the Chinatown-Online Web site.

Contents copyright 2003 - 2008 by Saxlady Productions.