“Hey, Brian! Today is Mei-Mei’s birthday! Do you want to go with my family to visit her?”
“Your sister? She already had her birthday!”
“No. Mei-Mei.”
Besides being Mandarin for “younger sister”, Mei-Mei was also the name of my mother-in-laws favorite dog. And she was as much family to my wife as her sister is, as many pets are to many other families. As such, when she passed away a couple years ago, she was given a proper Buddhist-slash-Chinese cultural send off, including her ashes being put in an ossuary placed a permanent home in a crypt complex specifically designed for pets. The cemetery is located in the mountains of Lin Kou, an area between Taipei city and the Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan. Of course, the backs of the individual crypts facing a mountain in typical good fung shwei style.
As with other Buddhist places of final rest, there is also an area dedicated to give offerings to the deceased. Exchange pet toys for fruit and bags of dog food for bags of snack chips and you’ll get the idea.
Here are more images taken there. Click on a thumb to display a full photo.
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Interesting series. I had no idea Taiwan has this type of thing.
Apparently there are a few, as she claims to have “chosen the best one”, implying there are more?
It’s an interesting place.
Can you post the address, seems like an interesting place to visit.
Thanks
@Carlos: My wife only knows that it’s in the Linkou area. My sis-in-law takes my mom-in-law there on the regular basis, so I’ll email her for the address.