Nail salon victim Yan Xu mourned at funeral blending Buddhist and Chinese traditions

Mourners lit incense, bowed three times and placed flowers into the open casket of Long Island manicurist Yan Xu, one of the four victims killed last month by an allegedly drunken driver who crashed into a Deer Park nail salon.

The service, with Buddhist and Chinese traditions, was Saturday morning at Chun Fook funeral home on Northern Boulevard in Flushing, Queens, the borough where Xu lived, having emigrated from China to make a new life in America. Xu, 41, died June 28, but the funeral was delayed to await an expedited visa for her husband, Ye Zhu, to travel from China.

"She was a wife. She was a daughter. She was one of us in this community. Just like many in our community, we all come here as immigrants. We work hard," Assemb. Ron Kim (D-Flushing), whose own family got its start in America in the nail salon business, said in a eulogy.

Xu did Long Islanders' nails in order to earn money to help support her father, Peijian Xu, who lives in Queens; her mother, Shaomei Fu, who has Alzheimer’s; and her son, Jie Ren, who has polio. Her mother and son live in China.

At Suffolk County court Friday, a prosecutor said that at the time of the crash, the alleged drunken driver, Steven Schwally, 64, was over twice the legal limit for alcohol. Schwally, who's jailed in lieu of bail, allegedly told the police he consumed 18 beers the night before the crash, in which he drove his 2020 Chevrolet Traverse into the salon, Hawaii Nail & Spa, at about 4:30 p.m.

He has pleaded not guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated.

The crash killed Xu as well as salon co-owner Jiancai "Ken" Chen, 37, of Bayside; Meizi Zhang, 50, of Flushing; and Emilia Rennhack, 30, of Deer Park, a customer at the salon who also worked as an NYPD officer. Nine others were injured.

A funeral for Rennhack was earlier this month in New Hyde Park. Services for the others are forthcoming.

Vicky Chen, Jiancai Chen’s sister, told Newsday at Xu's funeral that Wen Jun Cheng, who is Chen’s widow and the salon co-owner who was critically injured in the crash, is out of the hospital and back home with the couple's kids, but she's still unable to walk. The younger child still hasn't been told of the death, Vicky said. Cheng has had four surgeries, according to Vicky, who FaceTimed her own son from the funeral.

Buddhist monks chanted and prayed. Observing a Chinese tradition, mourners formed a procession and placed joss paper and prayer money into a furnace next to the casket — burned offerings so the spirit of the deceased has sufficient means in the afterlife.

Xu's father wailed and sobbed in grief. Her husband, wearing a black armband of mourning, wept; "Wife, I love you," he said in a eulogy delivered in Mandarin. Her aunt collapsed and had to be carried out.

Inside the coffin, a baseball cap embroidered with "NY" had been placed on Xu's head. Nearby was a Yankees cap.

The service drew not just Xu’s kin and friends, but also salon colleagues, local politicians and customers who drove from Long Island like Tracy Kilcarr, 53, and Linda Kohl, 63, both of Deer Park.

In the weeks before the crash, Kilcarr and Kohl had their nails done at the salon. The women haven't been able to bring themselves to remove the manicure-pedicures or get their nails done anywhere else, they said.

"I can’t take them off. I just can’t get rid of them," Kilcarr said, pointing to the calligraphic butterflies on each of her big toes done in a pedicure at the salon.

Both women, the salon's customers since soon after it opened over a decade ago, cried as the monks prayed.

"She was my girl," Kohl said, "and she was my friend."

Kilcarr happened to have witnessed the crash while waiting at a traffic light. She recalled how she and others, "trying to comfort the nail people that we all knew," screamed into the building, "'Help is coming! Please, stay with us!'"

"They were like family," Kilcarr said. "There are a million nail salons. This one was different."

Xu was to be cremated.

CORRECTION: A photo caption with an earlier version of this story misidentified the man holding Yan Xu's portrait.