Sadness, ritual mark funeral for Deer Park salon co-owner

The boy and girl mourning their slain father marched in a circle around a funeral altar as Buddhist monks in yellow robes chanted. The children's ritual was in keeping with a Chinese tradition to help the departed's soul break through the gates of hell and enter heaven.

It's been 32 days since an alleged drunken driver crashed into a Deer Park nail salon, killing the children's father, Jian Chai "Ken" Chen, 37, of Bayside, Queens, and three others inside. Chen co-owned the salon, with his wife, Wen Jun "Joy" Cheng. She was among nine injured who survived.

On Tuesday, as the children, 10-year-old daughter Yun Jia Chen and 5-year-old son Hao Yun Chen, marched, Cheng watched from a wheelchair, having been critically injured in the June 28 crash and unable to walk. She teared up when fellow mourners greeted her at the Chun Fook funeral home on Northern Boulevard in Flushing.

A sorrow-filled service

Throughout the service, Chen's mother sobbed loudly and stomped her feet; she had to be carried away each time she went to view her son's open casket. The children's uncle — their father's brother, Steven — joined them in the march, and he couldn't stop weeping.

Last month's crash occurred about 4:30 p.m. The driver, Steven Schwally, 64, has been indicted on four counts of second-degree murder, sources told Newsday earlier this week; he’s expected to be arraigned Thursday at Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead.

Schwally has been jailed in lieu of bail since he was charged shortly after the crash with driving while intoxicated. He allegedly told police he'd consumed 18 beers the night before the crash; his blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit, a prosecutor said at a court proceeding earlier this month.

During the service Tuesday, mourners in black trickled in, each wrapping a sash of white cloth around their waists. The service followed Buddhist and Taoist rituals; much of it was spoken in the dialect of Fuzhou, the city in southeast China from which the family emigrated to America. The family has owned the salon for more than a decade.

In the aftermath of the crash, the family had delayed telling the younger child about his dad's homicide, unsure how to deliver the devastating news.

Memorial traditions

In addition to the children, his wife and brother, Chen is survived by his parents, three older sisters as well as nieces and nephews, according to an obituary posted in Chinese on the wall outside the chapel.

Among Chinese traditions observed at Chen's funeral: placing 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.

Mourners included family, friends and salon customers who came from Long Island to the funeral home.

Justin Jiang, of Inwood, called Chen, a friend he had known since in middle school, a generous man who was kind and warmhearted.

"If you need anything, he’s there to help you," Jiang said in Mandarin. "He’s such a good man."

Linda Kohl, a longtime salon customer who lives in Deer Park, let out a soft cry when the couple’s two children knelt and bowed to a frame of their father’s photo decorated with white chrysanthemums and white and pink carnations.

Kohl said she and her mother, Angela Lowder, visited the salon on most Saturdays in the past 13 years as a mother-daughter ritual. Her mother’s nails were often painted by Cheng while hers were done by Yan "Jenny" Xu, an employee who also died in the crash.

"They were just different," Kohl said. "They weren't just a cookie-cutter shop where people just came in and they did your manicure."

Like family

The husband and wife owners often joked around with them, she said, and they had often seen the couple's children in the shop.

"They were special," Kohl said. "They were like family."

Kohl had also attended the funeral for Xu.

Separate funerals for Xu and salon client Emilia Rennhack, 30, who lived in Deer Park and worked as an NYPD officer, were held earlier this month. The final service, for the fourth victim, Meizi Zhang, 50, of Flushing, is scheduled for Wednesday.

Nakeia Morris, of Amityville, woke up Tuesday morning thinking of the couple and the other victims, knowing she would come to the service later in the day. She had rearranged work so she could attend.

"It's just a tragedy for no reason," she said. "That’s why it makes me so mad."

In the past 11 years, Morris had visited the salon about every three weeks to get her nails done and she considered the salon workers family.

"Coming in made it real . . . It seemed unreal. But this was like that final chapter. Ken is really gone. Jenny is really gone. Joy is without a husband, and Vicky is without a brother," she said. "It breaks my heart."