I have never seen the white stoles on the pallbearers, are they a norm for your area? Culture?
Culture. Its customary for the family of the deceased to wear the white cloth around their head, if the deceased had children, then the children wear a longer one around their heads that has two tails coming down(can't tie it though, only wrap it around). I've never seen it just draped around the shoulders (looks like a stole or an opera scarf to me) and I think that it was a last minute decision, as most of my family (the younger ones that is), have never been to a Vietnamese funeral and it would have been a lot of work to go around fixing everyone's cloth. Personally, I like to wrap it around my head more, it looks a lot better.
thank you everyone! :)