Qing Ming -- Part 1

    One day recently I spent a couple of hours in a Chinese graveyard.  We went on a Spiral Synergy outing to learn about the Chinese custom of cleaning graves and offering food to the spirits of deceased family members.  It's something they do both here and in Japan, but here it's much more complicated and colorful.  The whole family arranges to assemble on a certain day within a 20-day period, not an easy task when everybody is so busy making money!  

Sprinkling confetti on decorated grave -- Step One

     The number "4" is very unlucky normally because its pronunciation is the same as "death."  But, since this is a graveyard ritual, April 4th (4/4) was deemed the best day to do it.  We were lucky because a Chinese family was busy doing the rituals and they graciously allowed us Western tourists to intrude, take pictures, ask questions and see the whole process being done instead of just hearing about it.

     The family began by putting yellow & white prayer papers all over the grave itself.  These were then held in place by being stabbed with colorful paper flags on sticks.  Finally, multi-colored foil confetti was sprinkled all over it.   Incidentally, unlike in Western cemeteries, all the graves in a Chinese graveyard face the same way -- downhill.  It's important, it seems, to have higher ground behind the grave -- a mountain or temple is preferred -- and lower ground with a good view in front.  It's part of feng sui, I guess.

Food offerings -- Step Two

     Once the grave was ready, the family laid out food offerings for the spirit of the deceased -- fruit, cooked items, etc.  Incense was burned and everybody took turns offering prayers for the dead person's spirit. Then they waited fifteen minutes or so for the spirit to consume the feast.  The father determined whether or not the spirit was finished eating by doing a sort of two-coin toss.  Two heads or two tails mean the spirit hasn't finished yet.  So, they wait a while longer, and then try again.  When the coins finally show one coin "heads" and the other "tails", it means that the food has been appreciated by the spirit and can then be taken home to be eaten by the family.  If the food offerings are all eaten up by dogs or hungry people who hang around the graveyards at this time, they think that's OK.  They just assume that the spirit manifested itself as a dog or a person and came to eat it all up!
  
   By the way, this family was working very hard to benefit the spirit of a person who was not even a member of their family.  The deceased man's family is back in China and can't do it, so this gentleman in the green shirt was told by his father to take care of the grave here in Penang.  And so he does.  It costs quite a bit of money, not to mention time and trouble, to do this grave cleaning and honoring the deceased person's spirit.  Yet this fellow and his family do it faithfully year after year because the father requested it.    

    In the next post, I want to tell you why it gets so costly and what the final part of the ritual is.  So, check back tomorrow (or soon, anyway!) 

Step Three -- Asking the spirit if it's done eating