Chinese Wah Lai Funeral Home

If this was the last funeral home in the world, I still wouldn’t go back. I went to Chinese Wah Lai Funeral Home expecting compassion, professionalism, and some understanding of Chinese traditions during a sensitive time. Instead, I was treated like I was bothering them just for asking a simple question.

I asked what should be written on a headstone according to Chinese customs — a basic and respectful question — and was told bluntly, “Google it. We don’t do that here.” No sympathy. No willingness to help. Nothing.

That level of indifference in a place meant to guide grieving families is absolutely disgraceful. If they can’t take 30 seconds to show kindness or offer basic advice, it says everything about how much they’ll actually care for your loved ones when you leave them in their hands.

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Death. The grieving process for death is already hard. We hired this company to help us arrange my mom’s funeral accordingly and smoothly. When we got to the cemetery, we noticed that they engraved the wrong death date for my mom casket cover. We brought it to their attention. Not only did they not take responsibility, but argued with us over my mom’s dead body that the date on the casket doesn’t matter. I don’t know how long this funeral home has been running, but they don’t seem to realize that the loved ones of the deceased is going through tough times. They were so inconsiderate and disrespectful. This is the last thing we can do properly for my mom. If you want your loved ones funeral to go smoothly, and worth your time and money, go to another funeral home. They don’t seem to care about the people and the deceased that they serve. We hired them to make this day of grief easier, but not was not our experience. I would not recommend this company.

May you find a funeral home that brings peace to your deceased loved ones.

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I had many Asian family members historically come here as this was their preference. Unfortunately, during this visit, the front door staff underneath the main boss lady rushed ending each of the two day service to end early so they could go home. Today, prior to bringing the body to the crematorium, they ended the service twenty minutes early and yelled at family members to rush into the funerary cars so they could wrap up earlier; the assistant to the main boss screamed at us to not use the bathroom so we can rush the body into the car twenty minutes before service ending. Cold, insensitive, and disrespectful of the mourning we had for the deceased. If it weren't for that, the setting is adequately maintained but has not been updated in decades.

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I would not recommend Wah Lai Funeral Home to anyone. My loved one passed away last year and we used this funeral home for the service and burial. The manager coordinating everything said we could not place an order for the tombstone until 6 months later due to COVID. Not knowing the process we accepted what she said at face value. We contacted her half a year later to order the tombstone but she said it would now be another few months. Meanwhile I connected with another funeral home who would help and they were able to process the order for the tombstone straight away. I was very disappointed with Wah Lai because they would not accept our order (where other funeral homes could accept). But most importantly, we basically had to wait at the back of the line 6 months later than we should have (since booking is first come first serve). For context here, in general it takes about a year to get a tombstone completed from the time the contract is signed so the tombstone will take an extra half year on top of the typical year wait due to the delays experienced with Wah Lai. This is very disappointing as I understandably would want my loved one to have a proper tombstone sooner rather than later.

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Unfortunately have had to find a funeral home several times in the past 5 years. We’ve used Wah Lai every time and believe they have excellent services and prices. I would recommend Wah Lai for families that speak Mandarin and Cantonese, who’ve been in Chinatown before, and who follow the Lunar Calendar. Outside of these demographics, there may be miscommunication due to cultural differences (as seen in other reviews).

They’ll escort you to find a cemetery if you need one and we can usually book a date within the same week or the following week without conflict.

They take care of a lot of the legal paperwork and are well connected with city agencies and hospitals.

They will accommodate any religious affiliation and hang flowers around the room from family and well wishers. There are two rooms, one waiting room with a fireplace for burning paper money if that’s what you practice and the main room with the casket and rows of chairs for the service/funeral.

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