All Saints' Day

On November 1, I went to the cemetary in Bansalan. I was told that people in the Philippines have a slightly different way of paying hommage to the dead than we in the West... and they sure do.

I arrived on the cemetary on my own, which was an attraction in its own right. Never have I had so many pairs of eyes stare at me. It's funny, in a way, since I was no less amazed by what I saw on the cemetary. I talked to some people who were so kind to guide me around.

There were lots of people on the cemetary and I coulnd't see any tombs at first because of all the shops in front of them. Imagine people selling not only candles and flowers, but also food, drinks, beer, you name it. For one day in the year, Filipinos 'live' with the dead. The whole family gathers around the tombs, put up a tent or build a roof over the grave and sleep overnight on the cemetary. There is also a class distinction in the afterlife, apparently, because wealthy families build a whole house around the tomb. Some graves have a shower and toilet and I even saw one grave that had a karaoke machine in it... Incroyable!


In Bansalan, the cemetary road divides the rich families from the poor. On the right side are the simple tombs, on the left some tombs are bigger than many people's houses. In this section, I saw one guy casually roasting a pig.


I think you could say that All Saints' Day is really a social occasion and the dead are very much present. I guess many of us in the West are pretty much convinced that once you're dead, you're really gone. All Souls' Day, therefore, is perhaps more about memories than about actually 'visiting' the dead. In the Philippines, there is a deep sense that the 'other world' is just around the corner... It is also more a happy than a sad occasion. It's somehow nice how the dead bring the living together.

Have a look at Maya's blog for a different story about this 'pista minatay'.