I'm half-chinese, so occasionly will experience things on 'both sides of the street'. I agree that quite a bit of it is a case of 'tradition is tradition' (similar to Christmas for many non-practicing or non-religious folk). But I also think some of these traditions are kept because they serve some highly practical purpose. I've already experienced the standard western funeral a couple of times: death, service, wake, home. My (chinese) grandmother died a year ago and so the whole multi-day Chinese 'funeral' process still feels quite recent for me.
At the time, I was struck by how many of the rituals and traditions had very pragmatic reasons behind them. For instance, after the 'open-casket' viewing and the 'service' (sorta), the casket and basically every material possession belonging to or associated with the deceased are removed from the house and the casket is carried in procession to the crematorium. I think the 'house stripping' and casket removal are more than just symbolic traditions; they serve the very practical purposes of (a) forcing everyone to confront the fact that this person is dead, and so grieve while surrounded by friends and family and (b) reduce the possibility of close family members (who might actually live in said house) from 'getting stuck in the past' once the whole ordeal is over (living in a house of memories, if that makes sense).
The other part that stands out in my memory was when we went to collect the ashes a day or two after the above. And the bone fragments. Again, the whole family (~40-50 people) is there. In order of closest kin (i.e. eldest son first), each one of you picks up one of the bone fragments and places it in the urn, amongst the ashes. Again, while one could view this as some sort of spiritual ritual, I think the real purpose behind it is, again, to really force you to acknowledge that the person is dead and is never coming back. And so you grieve intensely, but fortunately you do so with your entire family there, all sharing your grief. They really wring it out of you and it's exhausting, but I think it's also very healthy. Although it's difficult at the time, once the entire ordeal is over you're in a much better position to get on with your life.
There's a bunch more stuff, but those are the two that stood out the most for me.
At the time, I was struck by how many of the rituals and traditions had very pragmatic reasons behind them. For instance, after the 'open-casket' viewing and the 'service' (sorta), the casket and basically every material possession belonging to or associated with the deceased are removed from the house and the casket is carried in procession to the crematorium. I think the 'house stripping' and casket removal are more than just symbolic traditions; they serve the very practical purposes of (a) forcing everyone to confront the fact that this person is dead, and so grieve while surrounded by friends and family and (b) reduce the possibility of close family members (who might actually live in said house) from 'getting stuck in the past' once the whole ordeal is over (living in a house of memories, if that makes sense).
The other part that stands out in my memory was when we went to collect the ashes a day or two after the above. And the bone fragments. Again, the whole family (~40-50 people) is there. In order of closest kin (i.e. eldest son first), each one of you picks up one of the bone fragments and places it in the urn, amongst the ashes. Again, while one could view this as some sort of spiritual ritual, I think the real purpose behind it is, again, to really force you to acknowledge that the person is dead and is never coming back. And so you grieve intensely, but fortunately you do so with your entire family there, all sharing your grief. They really wring it out of you and it's exhausting, but I think it's also very healthy. Although it's difficult at the time, once the entire ordeal is over you're in a much better position to get on with your life.
There's a bunch more stuff, but those are the two that stood out the most for me.