Traditions

[BaiSanghei]

Last night I caught a whiff of smoke, and after rushing around looking for the fire in my flat I realised it was coming from outside. Curious, I went downstairs to observe the funeral bonfire transpiring at my doorway.

The old man accross the lane from me had died; his wife and son were burning gifts for him to take in the afterlife - a house, money, a car, unusual quantities of books.

I had only watched this once before, when my ex grandfather-in-law died, but have recognized the next day charred remains many a time in my lane. I quickly realized I had made a huge faux paus and was being an idiot laowai (foreigner) by watching this private ritual, that all the other neighbors were studiously ignoring it.

Afterwards, I started MSNing a friend, another Sinified American with a Shanghainese boyfriend, and she made the point that traditions like the death gifts are becoming increasingly rare and forgotten among young Chinese. This is something I don't notice much, as I mostly hang out with old farts, but I suppose she is right.

Young Chinese are not becoming "Westernized" as some would suggest - that would just be the substitution of one set of traditions for another - they are become blanks. It is sad how little of their own history my Chinese friends under thirty know. Current communist education promotes only what is politically and economically useful. A lot of traditions, including my neighbors' funeral pyre, are in fact outlawed now, for the stupid reason that they don't fit with China's "international image". Often the end result is that the more intimate, personal traditions are vanishing, while the more stupid, superstitious stuff remains. Numerology remains popular, fengshui is getting imported from Hong Kong, and lots of health misconceptions (ie drinking water makes you fat) persist. Meanwhile, Western concepts of Chinese traditions are so pathetically reductionist; I have been at so many foreigner-organized events that included a lion dance "because we're in China" - not understanding that lion dances are Cantonese and are as indigenous to Shanghai and Beijing as Santa Claus.

I personally am very determined to, when I have kids, instill them with a strong sense of and critical appreciation of tradtion. I love big, blown-out Christmases, but prefer to understand but not embrace the Christian/Pagan logics behind them. I get ill at white weddings because the traditions ritualize women's past status as sexual chattal. I think perpetuating traditions "just because" "that's what we do" is meaningless; the meaning comes from understanding their origin and history and integrating it into your own life and moments.

[SunWuKong]

visiting graves and burning incense, i personally consider that tradition. burning paper things for the dead, i count that as superstition. i don't know how it is in Taiwan, but even without the Communist education in HK, you'll rarely see younger people burning things for the dead all on their own whims, doing it without it being that older relatives want to do it.

and well, if you want to talk tradition - my paternal grandfather who's in his 80s hates all that stuff. he's got old Communist ideologies. he tells me not to believe in anything, including religion, and that it's all hocus pocus.

[AngryABCGirl]

A lot of people in Taiwan practice a lot of traditions and rituals rellgiously, such as burning offerings in front of businesses, money for the dead, 拜拜 (baibai, don't know the English), including many young people. However I think the older people practice it more out of religion/superstitition while the young people do it more out of just tradition. Also, Taiwan, like some overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, because of its relative isolation from China practice a lot of old rituals, most likely of Fujianese and Hakka origin and some that have local origins that are no longer practiced in China. One thing in Taiwan that I'm actually pretty proud of is how much older traditions is interwoven with modern life. A lot of the rituals involving burning money and offerings in front of business is a way for all the employees of a business to get together to do something and part of social life. For 元宵節/Lantern Festival, I went with friends to set a lantern into the sky with all of our wishes on top of a mountain village that's a local tradition.

Ironically one person out of our circle of friends is an HK-er here for grad school who mentioned she was surprised at all the old traditions being observed here. However I do think one reason Taiwan continues to practice these rituals even to this generation is because of political movements for localization/本土化 and I think to some practicing these traditions is an assertion of Taiwanese identity.

That being said, traditions don't mean much of people don't have a grasp of any strong meaning or message behind it. Some traditions do die because of their lack of relevance to everyday life and beliefs, and it's sad that some do and it's good some are gone. Other than traditions in terms of rituals, I think a lot of traditional concepts and thinking is still deeply ingrained in young people here in terms of values that the Western world has barely penetrated even if people consume Western consumer goods. Thoughts and beliefs are more a part of culture than burning money or cuisine or other material aspects that merely material or ritualistic representations of those beliefs.

I think one thing one thing young Chinese people do lack in modern Asia is a lack of a modern Chinese identity, esp. in a case like Taiwan where identity determines nearly everything in politics in life. Most people in my generation in Asia grew up under drastically different socio, economic, and political circumstances than our parents and there's a huge generational split in views on how to live life. Also modern Chinese pop culture, and pop culture plays a big part of how young people look at the world bigger than say, Confucius, is pretty underdeveloped and lacking a lot of depth, which I think is why you see weird representations of popular Western culture in Asia among youth.

[eos]

things i follow because it makes my gran/mom happy: visiting the cemetary, chinese new year's stuff (wear bright colors, eat certain foods, no swearing, etc.), new baby stuff.

things i don't follow cuz they are stupid: not wearing all black, not going to sleep with wet hair, not washing my hair on new year's

i actually like watching those holiday shows they do in hk because the young and old come together to celebrate. that keeps certain traditions alive.

[kasia]

last year, we burnt two rolex watches for my great-grandparents.

[didu]

visiting graves and burning incense, i personally consider that tradition. burning paper things for the dead, i count that as superstition.

A lot of Chinese traditions are rooted in superstition, just like western traditions such as Halloween or Christmas. However, the celebration of these traditions are not necessarily a display of superstition.


i don't know how it is in Taiwan, but even without the Communist education in HK, you'll rarely see younger people burning things for the dead all on their own whims, doing it without it being that older relatives want to do it.


I think that's not very accurate. If you watch the first episode of Young and Dangerous (古惑仔), there is a scene in which the young triad members burned stuff for their murdered boss. I think that traditions such as burning stuff for loved ones who passed away have more meaning to middle-aged or old people, because they are the ones that are more likely to lose some one they care about a lot. Most young people probably won't have that kind of emotion until they themselves have lost some one they love dearly.


and well, if you want to talk tradition - my paternal grandfather who's in his 80s hates all that stuff. he's got old Communist ideologies. he tells me not to believe in anything, including religion, and that it's all hocus pocus.

My family is very atheist, but we still burn paper money during 清明節 whenever we can. Every family is different.

[AngryABCGirl]

A lot of Chinese traditions are rooted in superstition, just like western traditions such as Halloween or Christmas. However, the celebration of these traditions are not necessarily a display of superstition

I think that's not very accurate. If you watch the first episode of Young and Dangerous (古惑仔), there is a scene in which the young triad members burned stuff for their murdered boss. I think that traditions such as burning stuff for loved ones who passed away have more meaning to middle-aged or old people, because they are the ones that are more likely to lose some one they care about a lot. Most young people probably won't have that kind of emotion until they themselves have lost some one they love dearly.

My family is very atheist, but we still burn paper money during 清明節 whenever we can. Every family is different.

I think it depend on a lot on what rituals you do and what meaning it takes on and what emotions it expresses for each individual.

My family in Taiwan doesn't follow traditions or rituals very much in everyday practices, no altars etc. But when my grandfather passed away, his funeral and burial was followed in strict tradition here, from the robes we wore, to the money burning, to having every descendent transfer one of his bones to his urn, etc, although throughout all of this we had to be guided because none of us, especialy myself, knew the traditions well but felt it was very important to follow it to the book. None of us believe in the money in the afterlife thing and got really mad at one of the relatives for wanting to burn paper houses and stuff because they thought it was tacky.

However we won't be setting up an altar for him or anything because he'd think it woul be a waste of space and time because he was a really pragmatic businessman.

[SunWuKong]

I think that's not very accurate. If you watch the first episode of Young and Dangerous (古惑仔), there is a scene in which the young triad members burned stuff for their murdered boss.

did you seriously just reference Young and Dangerous as an example of how young Hong Kong people are like?

[monkeygone2]

did you seriously just reference Young and Dangerous as an example of how young Hong Kong people are like?

lol

[kasia]

i kinda have to say i agree with didu. not that i know anything about how hk youths are, but americanized chinese here in california do a lot of these things out for tradition's sake. a lot of us also go to church at the same time, or grew up in a church environment. so, in order to reconcile the two, you can't be burning stuff based on some superstitution that is not recognized by the Christian religion - your one justification is that you are following tradition.

[didu]

did you seriously just reference Young and Dangerous as an example of how young Hong Kong people are like?

Did you how popular Y&D was among young HK people? I only used Y&D as an example to show that it's rare for young people to practice traditional funeral activities because they are very unlikely to have lost anyone worthy of such activities.

Walking along the streets of HK, you'd see burning incense in front of people's doors. Lots of places in HK, including police stations, have offerings for 关二爷. It'd be an exaggeration to say that young people in HK are neglecting their traditions.

[SunWuKong]

Did you how popular Y&D was among young HK people? I only used Y&D as an example to show that it's rare for young people to practice traditional funeral activities because they are very unlikely to have lost anyone worthy of such activities.

Walking along the streets of HK, you'd see burning incense in front of people's doors. Lots of places in HK, including police stations, have offerings for 关二爷. It'd be an exaggeration to say that young people in HK are neglecting their traditions.

i never said young people in HK are neglecting traditions. read my post again, i was making a distinction between what i think is tradition and superstition. i do think burning incense is tradition, but i think burning things to send to the dead is superstitious. and yeah i think younger HKers are becoming less superstitious. we've been talking about burning things to send to the dead as an example, but how many young people in HK do things like 打小人 and burn things on 鬼節? depending on who you ask, these are either traditions or superstitions, or both. the difference probably gets blurred with some of these things, but i think things like 打小人 and 鬼節 are more superstition than tradition.

[AngryABCGirl]

speaking of traditions, it's 中元 here. What is that in english, i dn't know. I don't really understand what it is, but this is apparently not the day to displease ghosts, so every single business has an offering set outside of tradition and superstition, young people in Taiwan are growing more superstitious with a fucked up education system btw, and sending smoke and ashes everywhere.

But it was like over 40 degrees today with humidity and the sun was blazing and literally EVERY SINGLE business is burning paper money outside with a table full of offerings for ghosts. Each office building instead of burning just a small little bucket of paper money, literally has a large industrial sized garbage basket thing burning money flaming ashes pieces polluting the air. I think I got some of it up my nose. People literally do this every other week here to some extent, but literally every single and I mean every single business, even 7/11, no matter how minor has a table with offerings and is burning paper money. Can you imagine the entire staff of large tech companies which than have multiple industrialized garbage cans burning stuff in front of an office building? Sucks cause the air has been so clean this week because a class five typhoon swept through last week.

Stupid superstitious tradition made into company activity in my opinion now sending pollutants in already polutted air and promoting superstitious crap.

I am pissed at what I now regard as a stupid superstitious tradition polutting the air and being a health hazard. I was moving my furniture to deliver to people today and mailing packages. The smoke from the 7/11 burning crap outside kept wafting into the Post Office that had no air conditioning. everyone was trying to cover theri faces with something so they wouldn't inhale the smoke and ashes that were everywhere! everywhere!

end of rant

seriously 中元, fuck you

[didu]

i never said young people in HK are neglecting traditions. read my post again, i was making a distinction between what i think is tradition and superstition. i do think burning incense is tradition, but i think burning things to send to the dead is superstitious. and yeah i think younger HKers are becoming less superstitious. we've been talking about burning things to send to the dead as an example, but how many young people in HK do things like 打小人 and burn things on 鬼節? depending on who you ask, these are either traditions or superstitions, or both. the difference probably gets blurred with some of these things, but i think things like 打小人 and 鬼節 are more superstition than tradition.

As I said, most traditions have roots in superstitions. Even Chinese New Year is rooted in superstition. A lot of "superstitious" traditions are not being practiced so much today because of practical considerations. For example, it's a bit hard for everyone in HK to burn paper money during the QingMing festival, because of the density of HK.

[AngryABCGirl]

So today at one of the ghost offering tables, I saw someone with a bucket of KFC chicken with an incense stick stuck into it, hahahaha

[didu]

So today at one of the ghost offering tables, I saw someone with a bucket of KFC chicken with an incense stick stuck into it, hahahaha

Paper KFC chicken or real KFC chicken?

[AngryABCGirl]

Paper KFC chicken or real KFC chicken?

a real bucket of fried chicken

with an incense stick stuck into a chicken breast. I was gonna take a picture, but there was a woman sitting right next to it and that would have been very awkward.

[Adaon]

So today at one of the ghost offering tables, I saw someone with a bucket of KFC chicken with an incense stick stuck into it, hahahaha

I'm not sure which smell I'd prefer in my clothes, the incense or the burnt grease from the chicken.

[CBC guy]

One time I poured 'leung cha" (cooling herbal tea) on the ground in front of my great-Grandfather's grave near Guangzhou. Never touched a stick of incense in my life. (Family's christian... yeah, go ahead and flame me now for being a "race traitor".)

Hey, my 600th post! Just realized that.

[Adaon]

One time I poured 'leung cha" (cooling herbal tea) on the ground in front of my great-Grandfather's grave near Guangzhou. Never touched a stick of incense in my life. (Family's christian... yeah, go ahead and flame me now for being a "race traitor".)

Hey, my 600th post! Just realized that.

Race traitor? That's a new one to me....

[AngryABCGirl]

One time I poured 'leung cha" (cooling herbal tea) on the ground in front of my great-Grandfather's grave near Guangzhou. Never touched a stick of incense in my life. (Family's christian... yeah, go ahead and flame me now for being a "race traitor".)

Hey, my 600th post! Just realized that.

I never touched incense stick before I came here either because my mother is Christian and couldn't let me have any part in those things. She even forbade me to play mahjong because she said it encourages gambling because a friend of hers lost a restaurant on a mahjong game once and now it's a sin.

[mr. x]

I never touched incense stick before I came here either because my mother is Christian and couldn't let me have any part in those things. She even forbade me to play mahjong because she said it encourages gambling because a friend of hers lost a restaurant on a mahjong game once and now it's a sin.

well my brother's Christian and I don't that ever stopped him from doing the "bai bai" (not sure how to spell it in Chinese)

I don't Mahjong cuz I'm a Texas Hold'em guy :cool:

[Adaon]

I never touched incense stick before I came here either because my mother is Christian and couldn't let me have any part in those things. She even forbade me to play mahjong because she said it encourages gambling because a friend of hers lost a restaurant on a mahjong game once and now it's a sin.

-rolls eyes-

Gambling and drinking are NOT sins. When they become vices that control our lives, THAT'S when they are sins. :rolleyes: Well, I'm not accusing anyone of thinking that way, but just to clear up any misconception.

I <3 Mahjong, but the high skill winning hands (see the Mahjong thread we had started elsewhere, I can't linkerize between too many windows at the moment), but the old folks (I.E. my aunts, uncles, parents) never let me play with, as I took over for my dad once, and whomped the pants off them. (2 points or more, baby, woot. =)) They promptly brushed me off after that, and started playing for chicken hands (zero points)

[CBC guy]

Funny enough, my parents never "banned" gambling per se, but i was never interested in MJ or Poker anyways. Just never got into it. Why risk it? (That's IMO)

Never played mahjong. I'm a pretty decent chinese chess (xiangqi) player though.

And yes, gambling and drinking per se are not sins in themselves. (Jesus drank alcohol too, check the bible) i don't mind others playing MJ or drinking, I just never do it myself.

And you guys should've known that the "race traitor" thing was tongue in cheek. ;)

[SunWuKong]

to be fair, there is a bit of taboo with gambling in Chinese culture because so many Chinese people are addicted to gambling. yes, i've even seen old guys playing street Chinese chess and gambling on it, cursing each other out. i love playing mahjong, but i don't play to gamble - i know, that probably sounds boring. my father used to go to the race track twice every week, and gambling was basically my aunt's career when she was still married. as a rule, i don't gamble, i don't even play the lottery. but a few times i've played poker with some buddies because they kept asking me to. and now that i'm older and getting more tired of the rat race, i'm thinking i might start buying lottery tickets on a regular basis on the off chance that i win and become a gazillionaire.