The informant is of Chinese descent and shared this piece at my request. It was an informal environment.

So why shouldn’t you go home immediately after a funeral?

“It’s cause spirits might follow you home, so you gotta just drop the spirits off like at a 99 cents store or something and then you can go home.”

The informant later clarified that you are tricking any lingering spirits that are following you into thinking that you have arrived home, leaving them at wherever you chose to stop. I found this quite interesting because it is in a bit of a conflict with what I know about how ghosts and spirits are viewed in Chinese culture, especially those of your family. Generally, people do not hold the same fear or aversion to the dead and spirits as white Americans do. I would assume that that people do this because too many spirits in one’s home may be a bother, or there might be malicious spirits. If this is the case, then