Mindy Meng Wang on the ‘disorienting’ experience of her father’s funeral – and the Chinese cyber-opera it inspired

Australia-based Mindy Meng Wang started learning the guzheng as a child in China – and has now played the most prestigious venues in the world. Photograph: Supplied

When Mindy Meng Wang’s father died in 2015, the Melbourne-based musician found herself navigating grief while also organising his funeral in her home city in north-western China. It was to be an elaborate, three-day ceremony filled with prescribed rites, including burning paper effigies, ritualised crying and prayer chants.

Looking back, Wang describes the experience as “completely shocking and disorienting”. “There were so many rules for what I had to do over those three days, and so many things that I could not understand,” she says. “People criticised my crying; at a certain point, when certain [guests] came in, I was meant to do a performative cry – really loud and a big gesture – but it was like, ‘I’m actually feeling really sad, I can’t do this!’”