They were families who had made it. A man who escaped communist China by walking into Vietnam, then, four decades later, moved his wife and 10 children to Virginia. A father in Indonesia who sold his property and cars to pay for his son's doctoral degree. A couple whose 1982 wedding in Lebanon coincided with an Israeli attack on Beirut, and whose family trip home last summer was cut short when war erupted there again.

This week, in funeral services across the globe, they are bringing their children home.

Civil engineering student Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26, will be buried tomorrow in Puerto Rico, where mourners stay up all night. Henry Lee, 20, was remembered this weekend in a Buddhist ceremony, with personal items to carry to the afterworld. For Reema Samaha, 18, who will be buried tomorrow in Falls Church, Va., the Lebanese Melkite Catholic community she grew up in will eat white fish with Arabic spices and share memories of her.

The students and professors who died in the Virginia Tech massacre represented five continents, with homelands as diverse as Egypt, Israel, Peru and India. Some had lived in the United States all their lives but maintained strong ties to their parents' roots; others arrived from their native countries.

They came to the bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, so they could become, or help others become, architects, hydrologists and engineers. Instead, their families are remembering lives cut short.

In Egypt, Waleed Shaalan, 32, was buried Saturday in his village of El Malakeyeen El Bahareya. After mourners said a funeral prayer at a mosque, he was buried in the family plot, and the following day the family home was open for "aza," a time for visitors to pay respects.

Visitors paying their respects at the Samaha home were served unsweetened coffee, Arabic style.

"Mainly what's different is the way the Lebanese will react (at) the viewing," said Rawiya Koyomji, a member of the local community. "They cry more, they yell. . . . You cannot sit there quietly."

After the burial, mourners will return to the church for a feast of white fish with caramelized onions and Arabic spices, said Tom Fadoul, a cousin who grew up with Samaha's father, Joe, in Arlington, Va.

"They always serve the same meal," he said, adding that it is a dish reserved for mourning.

An uncle traveled from Dubai, and an aunt from Canada. Samaha's grandparents, who could not find a flight out of Beirut in time, are due to arrive later this week.

Ortiz's funeral in his hometown of Bayamon will be watched on television all over the island. He was a magna cum laude graduate of Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.

"This is going to be a big event in Puerto Rico," said Silvie Rivera, a Puerto Rican who lives in Waldorf, Md. "As soon as (his body) lands in Puerto Rico there's going to be wall-to-wall coverage on TV, in radio, and in print."

Rivera said Ortiz's death had captured attention there "because of what he represented - a very intelligent Puerto Rican man who was there studying to get his master's. It's just pride, I mean, people are just so proud of him."

In Puerto Rico, she said, family members spend long hours at the funeral home, sometimes all night, as visitors stream in. Mourners eat cheese and crackers and drink a kind of hot chocolate served tepid.

"It's a specific Puerto Rican beverage," Rivera said. "It has a tingey, tropical taste to it."

Lee, whose ethnic Chinese family immigrated here from Vietnam, was remembered over the weekend in a Buddhist ceremony led by his father at Oakey's North Chapel in Roanoke, Va. His family brought some of his favorite possessions: his sunglasses, his watch, his comb.

"They're preparing the person for a journey into the afterlife," said Steven Cunningham, the manager there, adding that Buddhist families often bring in simulations of the deceased person's favorite foods and tuck paper money into the coffin for the afterworld.

The rites included a stop at William Fleming High School, where Lee was salutatorian last spring.

"They look at it as a journey, and as part of that journey they are going to bring him back to William Fleming," said Susan Willis, the principal, adding that about 1,000 people attended the ceremony.

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