Chinese Funeral

Last week, one of my student's father died in a car accident. I felt so sorry for her especially because she's from one of the poor, rural, countryside towns nearby and therefore she lives at the school and doesn't get to see her family much. They also told me that the last phone call her father made was to her. All week she had a hard time accepting that her father was not coming back. But last Friday was the funeral and some other teachers of that class took me to the girl's home in the countryside to comfort her during the ceremony.
It was interesting... Everyone brings three thing for the family to the funeral; a huge colorful decoration (this circular wreath thing made with colorful paper about 6 feet in diameter), Chinese firecrackers to make a lot of noise when arriving at the funeral, and money to give to the family to help with the loss of income. At the family's home they have traditional Chinese drums (or at least a tradition in this part of China) playing for 24 hours before the burial, and all the family and friends come to eat a big meal. The street in front of the girl's home, which is no more than a dirt path between 2 farms, was crowded with tables and people who were coming and going in only 15-20 minutes. The people don't stay long and most of them don't even talk to the family of the deceased (or not that I can see). But at any one time there were 100 or so people in the street in front of this girl's home. Another tradition was for the family to wear these long strips of white cloth on their heads. They tie them on with a piece of rope around their heads then tie the tail of the cloth to their waste with another rope as a belt. I couldn't find out the significance of this, no one spoke enough English to understand my question...