Lowaicue
英語在香港
清明节That means Ching Ming (various spellings). Ching Ming is our next public holiday and it falls on Thursday 4 April this year.
Now you can read loads of stuff about the true meaning of Ching Ming and its significance but to this ex-pat it means popping into a room at the back of the flat, every now and then, and counting the number of fires visible on the surrounding mountains and hills.
The fire services use it to pray for rain. One year 83 mountain fires were attended to within 24 hours. Ancesters have, traditionally, been 'buried' on the sides of hills so no one tends the graves as they do in the west. Twice a year, once at Ching Ming and then at Chung Yung in the autumn, families traipse up into the hills to weed and clean the graves and to display nice things for the dead to enjoy, like rice, oranges, rice wine. The dead are usually much too slow (partly because of their deceased state) so the stuff is cleared away or abandoned. Rubbish is burned and those fires turn the hills into flaming beacons.
Local temples are located at the heads of enormous queues of mostly old women carrying oranges and rice wine to offer to the gods, lots of incense sticks are burned and our local pub adds 30% to the price of its beer! Then we pop down, have an argument and pay the normal price because we are 'stupid foreigners who do not understand'.
All part of the tradition.
Now you can read loads of stuff about the true meaning of Ching Ming and its significance but to this ex-pat it means popping into a room at the back of the flat, every now and then, and counting the number of fires visible on the surrounding mountains and hills.
The fire services use it to pray for rain. One year 83 mountain fires were attended to within 24 hours. Ancesters have, traditionally, been 'buried' on the sides of hills so no one tends the graves as they do in the west. Twice a year, once at Ching Ming and then at Chung Yung in the autumn, families traipse up into the hills to weed and clean the graves and to display nice things for the dead to enjoy, like rice, oranges, rice wine. The dead are usually much too slow (partly because of their deceased state) so the stuff is cleared away or abandoned. Rubbish is burned and those fires turn the hills into flaming beacons.
Local temples are located at the heads of enormous queues of mostly old women carrying oranges and rice wine to offer to the gods, lots of incense sticks are burned and our local pub adds 30% to the price of its beer! Then we pop down, have an argument and pay the normal price because we are 'stupid foreigners who do not understand'.
All part of the tradition.