Funerals are an "odd custom"? What an entirely odd thing to say, I cannot imagine what you mean. Why is meditating on the passing of a friend, remembering their life and being present with the grief of their family "odd"??
As they are observed in the U.S., I'd argue they _are_ an odd custom, because it's so free-form.
I'm old enough that I've been to a number of funerals -- ranging from distant, much older family members when I was a kid, to funerals for an aunt not quite out of her 30s, a cousin not yet 20, and some friends or for family of my spouse.
A lot of the time the customs are _unclear_. The services vary a lot. There's a great deal of uncertainty around "what should I do?" Because we don't have a coherent funerary custom here. We have plenty of conflicting ideas and expectations around funerals.
So, on top of grief, you have the fear of "doing it wrong" and compounding someone's else's grief when you attend the funeral of a friend or family member. People have hurt feelings because friends and family members don't live up to their assumptions about what someone else should (or shouldn't) do at a funeral.
In some ways, it'd be comforting if it were more scripted and you knew exactly what you were expected to do, say, and so forth.
Note that custom for funerals comes from the local culture and customs of how previous funerals are run. So that it isn't to you is just a reflection on your culture, other people come from different cultures where such a thing is not normal and because it is not normal- for their culture - it harms their meditations which would be done in the way they have grown up doing.
As such I'm not making a statement of right and wrong for your culture, only that in OPs culture it is wrong and so asking for someone to speak like that was in fact wrong on the part of whoever asked. Whoever asked may well have come from a different culture where this behavior is normal and so made a mistake by not recognizing that they were in a different culture!
I guess we drew different conclusions. To me lack of optional participation doesn’t imply the offer was inappropriate. Calling this cultural requires a much narrower definition of culture than I would use.
I initially interpreted it to mean that expecting people to give impromptu speeches at funerals was an odd custom (that certainly doesn't happen where I live), but now I'm not so sure.
