If someone (elderly) dies, he or she must go out with all the pomp and pageantry afforded by the bereaving family.
Full page color ads on the newspapers, massive funeral procession at the void deck with busloads of mourners etc.
It's about flaunting the family's wealth and the deceased's popularity. That's all there is to it.
Many of these old people who live this world at the end of their mortal life had been very badly treated by the very people who mourn their demise.
More often then not they had been abused by their daughter-in-laws or some other people.
Upon their death, those that bemoan them will put up large "kuan-teys" in the form of paper buildings, cars and even computers, paper money and GIRLS so that the departed souls can "enjoy" in the next world. The surviving members may speng 100 of thousands of dollars on such offerings.
I personally know one friend who use to scold his late father with all the four-lettered Hokkien expletives when the dad was alive. They were then living in a chicken farm at Lim Chu Kang.
Upon the father's death he wailed very loudly. One of our friends when up to him and told him to take it easy, "as the old had been rid".
Good actors indeed.