Taiwan’s “Funeral Strippers” Liven Up Funeral Rites

A black-clad funeral stripper commemorates a death in Taiwan.
Credit: AFP/Getty Images

While turning funerals into celebratory events is an increasingly common phenomenon around the globe, Taiwan has been honoring its dead in a rather unique way since the 1980s: with funeral strippers. Young women perform on what are known as “Electric Flower Cars,” where they sing, dance and slide up and down stripper poles, sometimes removing the few items of clothing they’re wearing. And despite their relatively new appearance at funerals, reports of Taiwanese women stripping at religious performances date back for more than a century.

“In traditional times there were already funeral wailers, as well as entertainment troupes for the gods,” Professor Chang Hsun at Academia Sinica Taiwan said in the ethnographic film “Dancing for the Dead: Funeral Strippers in Taiwan.” “They already had the concept that gods, ghosts and ancestors all want entertainment.” More recently, funeral strippers — first associated with the mafia, which had made inroads into the industry — were quickly embraced by the wider public as a way to ensure a well-attended, and thus “successful,” funeral. Electric Flower Cars — converted vehicles on which the women perform — are also commonly found at marriages and temple events, such as those celebrating gods’ birthdays.

Funeral Strippers Provide Exotic Send-Off

In 2017, Taiwanese politician Tung Hsiang made news with his lavish funeral celebration. After his death at 76, Hsiang’s son told SET TV that his father had appeared to him in a dream to request that his funeral be “hilarious.” As a result, it included some 50 pole-dancing women in addition to traditional totems, drummers, imported luxury cars and flag-bearers. Hsiang “enjoyed a buzz,” his son said.

Funeral strippers are popular in some areas of rural China.
Credit: Neil Wade, Flickr/Taiwan News

Anthropologist Marc Moskowitz, who filmed “Dancing for the Dead: Funeral Strippers in Taiwan,” noted that funeral processions and celebrations often also incorporate more traditional performances, such as Taiwanese opera. “What is it that make the deceased satisfied? They have EFC performers strip,” said a government official named Jiao Wenjie in the film. “Because, after someone has died, although the living kin are heartbroken, when we send them to heaven you want to make them happy entertaining them.”

Stripper funerals also occur in parts of rural China, where the government has made an effort to crack down on the practice.