ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the scene for the ethnographic analysis. Beginning with my first field encounter with death ritual, the most important practice about death and the yin world that every local person has to experience from early childhood, this chapter represents in detail major ritual steps and examine related ideas about death and afterlife. As individual participation is always partial and limited by one’s specific role and perspective, I argue that funeral practices place more emphasis on transmitting how to properly communicate with the yin world than on clarifying what it looks like. Focusing on ordinary villagers’ experience, I demonstrate that funeral practices instill awe in participants as the basic attitude toward the yin world, and train them to embody it through compulsorily performance of bai. Finally, I explore the growing popularity of panoramic presentations of funerals in videos shot by local photographers, suggesting an emerging change that might eventually influence the transmission of knowledge about the yin world.
