In Wild Swans, the family memoir by Jung Chang, she discusses what happened when her father died. He had been an important member of the Chinese Communist party, but under a cloud at the time of his death. Her mother made enormous efforts to ensure that his funeral was as grand as possible, with the usual speeches and huge wreaths, because she knew that the funeral would reflect her husband’s standing with the party, and a suitably grand funeral would mark his posthumous rehabilitation, which would have a material effect on the fortunes of his survivors in Mao’s China.