Yishun woman's Taoist funeral bridges three cultures, family tradition

Ya Ni, a 74-year-old Indian woman who grew up in a predominantly Chinese village in Sembawang, was given a Taoist funeral send-off at Block 109, Yishun Ring Road following her death from pneumonia in early August. Her family honoured her explicit pre-death wishes by conducting the ceremony according to Chinese funeral rites, a tradition that spanned three generations of her lineage.

Raised as the only Indian family in a Chinese village, Ya Ni and her siblings became fluent in Hokkien and Mandarin despite their father's Malayalam heritage and mother's Malayan roots. The family celebrated both Deepavali and Chinese New Year, and Ya Ni's father eventually adopted Hokkien after marrying into the community. Her husband similarly embraced the dialect after marriage.

At the wake, younger family members wore blue and green pants to denote generational rank, kneeling before the altar in observance of Taoist custom. The ceremony preserved both traditions: a spirit house was prepared for burning in Chinese ritual, while her son placed a bindi on her portrait in Indian cultural honour. Ya Ni had requested her brother, who works in the funeral industry, to arrange the Taoist ceremony before her death. Her mother had received the same send-off when she passed in 2003, as did one of Ya Ni's brothers in 1998, cementing the family's cross-cultural funeral practice across decades.

• 17 Aug 2026mothership.sg