It was the first time I celebrated
Qingming festival with my family and in fact, it was the first time I have ever heard of the festival. In English, it means "tomb sweeping day," and
thats just what it is. Think of it as
Easter in a Chinese way or a day to remember your
ancestors.
I arrived to
Zhuhai late Thursday night after a rainy day in Guangzhou. Of course when I went to buy my ticket at the bus station, all of the tickets were sold out.
That's just how things go when holidays come around in China. I managed to find a guy who was also going to
Zhuhai so we got a black cab and were on our way. I wasn't feeling well that day and just wanted to sleep but then the 20-something guy i was sharing the cab with shared a horror story about black cabs with me. He was in a black cab with 3 other guys, including the driver, in
Shenzhen and they all turned on him and robbed him at knife point! So, i couldn't sleep but by the time I arrived to
Zhuhai i was ready for bed!
"Jo-
san! Wake up boy!" Its 8 in the morning and my uncle wakes me to get ready and head to
Samzhou, the village. Shortly after arriving he said, "lets go boy, we're going to a restaurant." Alright. So we started walking towards the village center and took a detour straight into the jungle. "Where we going?" I asked in a confused way. He said "we're going to see some live entertainment" then he giggled a bit. Alright, whatever. So we climb the hill a ways through the jungle and we arrive to a tomb where there are another 50-some-odd other
people. I recognized a couple people and my uncle called me over to meet some one new. After jabbering some
Cantonese he says to me "this is Uncle
Kwan." I say "Ne ho!....uncle, who is that?" He said "
that's Uncle
Kwan, too." "and her?" "that's auntie
Kwan." I stopped asking questions. My uncle then explained to me that the tomb was for great, great, great, great, great, great (plus or minus more greats) grandpa
Kwan. I think he passed on 1060 years ago. Very interesting. After we lit some
incense, poured some
baijiu and tea and burned some money, we all headed to Uncle
Kwan's restaurant. We ate good food and drank beer and
baijiu at noon.
"Jo-
san! wake up boy!" Then next morning my uncle woke me a bit before 8 to head to the village again. So much for a vacation! My uncle and I went to the village and got into the back of some uncle
Kwan's truck and
went for a short drive up a big hill. We drove on a paved road half-way up the hill then hit a dirt road that was barely visible through the thick jungle bush. After driving a ways, we arrived to an area where the sun shined. It was an open field in the middle of a jungle where there were about 20 rows of roofed canopies each
stretching about 50 yards long. It looked like something out of a Pablo
Escobar film. The thing that got to me was that when we got out we were greeted by about 15 others who handed us a couple large baskets tied on each end of a wood pole. They also handed over hoes, shovels, rakes and other farming like tools. "uncle, what are we doing here?" He said, "this is your first time doing this....mine too." It was a beautiful day and as we hiked further up the hill i only got more curious as to what it was we were doing there. I hiked further up and passed another group of people who all had similar tools as we did. All i could think was, whats going on here. I stopped to have a drink of water and take in the view. I turned around to an amazing view of our village
nestled between 2 other large hills and the sea in the background. It was a beautiful view and gave me a perspective
I've never seen before. We continued hiking up the hill and arrived to 3 other tombs similar to the one the day before, just smaller. They were the tombs of great, great, great grandmas and grandpas. We cleaned them off and did a similar routine of burning
incense, pour tea and
baijiu and then burn money for our ancestors.
Day 3, "Jo-
san! wake up boy!" The
thrid day we went our immediate family went, which included my cousins, niece, brother-in-law, grandma, aunts and uncle. We went to the tomb of my grandpa and uncle. The previous 2 days i wrote off as an interesting learning experience but this day had meaning to it. It was my grandpa and uncle there. I never had the chance to meet them, until this day. It brought me joy to know that they are at rest and have loving family that still remember them and care for them. We did a longer ceremony here, which included a roast pig and firecrackers. It was a good experience being in my father's home-town for
Qingming festival. Maybe i can make it down again next year.
