A Chinese tradition

The story is an excerpt of the author's second Book Seeds of a Strange Kind

It's early in the morning. We're climbing a hill. With us we have food, drink and replicas of everyday things. I'm touched to see how concerned the Chinese are about the well-being of the departed. We stopped in front of a grave built in the form of a horseshoe.

From who is this grave? I asked.

From your great grandfather my niece said. Did he wore his hair in pigtail fashion and did he have many wives and concubines? I thought, thinking about those stereotype images with which we were fed with in the West.

The author sitting on the knees of his father, his brothers standing next to him. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Here," my cousin said pushing a broom into my hands. I began sweeping and thinking about Dad. He didn't tell us anything. He didn't tell us anything about his family, his country and his culture. He didn't tell us anything about his side of the story. No wonder his side of the family didn't exist for us, no wonder China didn't exist for us, not until lately. We even knew they existed.

It was my turn to pay respect to the ancestors. I bowed slightly offering sweet-smelling incense. When "you're dead, you're gone," I heard mother's voice echoing in my ears. I reflected upon the huge differences between the two sides of the family. On mother's side of the family, people mourned for eight days, perhaps the only thing they remembered after that was the amount of booze, the goat soup, the jokes and the other delicacies they'd consumed, or the fights that had broken out during the epoch of bereavement.

What can I tell this great grandpa of mine; the sad story of his grandson in a faraway place?

It was time to fresh up great grandpa's grave; touch it up so that he could feel happy in the afterlife.

Who was he? Who is he? The dead, they never die in China, they're alive and well. They eat, sleep, and make demands to the living. I wonder what my great grandpa thinks about me, the relative who doesn't know anything about his traditions and his people and who cannot even speak his language.

What would he say if he woke from his 19th century old grave and climbed out of his grave and see what has become of his country? My mind went to a grave on the other side of the globe I thought about my Caribbean grandmother's grave, a grave covered with weather-beaten sun-faded wreaths rocking back and forth in the Trade Winds. Nobody brought grandma food. Nobody cared. I shuddered at the thought of going hungry in the afterlife, eternally. If this is true, how many angry and famishing souls wouldn't there be by now? How long time hasn't Dad been starving in a foreign grave abroad? Perhaps it was better to be on the safe side and do as the Chinese do, because one can never know for sure if there is life after death. One can only know about that when one is truly dead. Luckily, I brought Dad's remains to China. Otherwise he would be angry with us going hungry in the afterlife so many years.

We finished tidying up great grandpa's gravesite and lit a bunch of joss-sticks. The crispy morning air blended with the sweet fragrance of incense. Hopefully, the smell will keep away evil spirits and put our patriarch in good mood for the upcoming festivities, hoping that they'll enjoy the food, drink, cigarettes and the things we offered them, things they coveted and enjoyed when they were still alive and well. It was time to serve to the ancestors the pièce de résistance, a honey glazed suckling pig decorated with a cherry inserted in each eye socket and red colored paper cones inserted on its ears and tail. Its skin shone in the sunlight as if it was recently taken out of a blazing hot grill. As side dish for the departed ancestors they brought red glazed cakes to wash it down with a bottle of clear liquor.

After the ancestors had their fill and smoked their cigarettes, we set afire; replicas of shirts, trousers, shoes, toys, money, cars, television sets, laptops etc all made of paper –there was even a remote control, things that not even existed in their time. I smiled at the thought of our great great-grandfather playing with a remote control changing the channels on one of his paper televisions while wondering what Dad and our ancestors would have thought about laptops, calculators, and all those things from our modern world on which stood; Made in China.

Would he change his abacus for a calculator and send an e-mail instead of a telegram?

Deeply immersed in thoughts about their yesterday and our today, their past and our present, I looked at the smoke of the paper presents burning spiraling skywards carrying paper presents to a spiritual realm and turning imitation presents into real presents by the power of our fire and love. Paper replicas purified by fire to bring out the essence, imitation money becoming real money to buy things in the hereafter.

The past, the present, and the future became one, an unbroken line a closed circle, like the walls around Dad's village, an uninterrupted line contrary to ours.

I realized now how alive the death was for the living. I realized now how much the past, the present, and the future meant to them, the glue that held their family and country together.

Unfortunately, his traditions didn't exist for us; only mother's traditions did.

After honoring the patriarch we proceeded to the grave site where Dad was going to be reunited with his family. This was his true home-coming, his re-burial, his renaissance in a new China. Seventy-something years ago he left his village, now he arrived home. Thirty-two long years he was locked up in foreign soil, imprisoned in a foreign womb. Thirty-two long years he wrestled with me to bring him home. Now, finally, he was released from the arid soil that had kept him imprisoned.

A line in a poem cousin send to me cross my mind. Free at last,

YOU HERALD

THE AWAKENING

OF SPRING

AS ICY STILLNESS IS PLEASED BY THE SUN

AND, FREE AT LAST, THE NOISY RIVULETS

WHERE BARE ROCKS CLING.

THE VALLEY RINGS WITH THE AVALANCHE

OF SOUND,

THE SPLASH AND CRASH OF WATER UNCONTROLLED.

SPRAY LEAPS SKYWARD AS IT HITS THE GROUND.

A SUN BURST OF BEAUTY TO BEHOLD.

Among the trees on the slope of a lonely hill I saw our ancestor's grave house, Dad's final resting place; a yellow and white painted tomb partially hidden among the trees. Two years ago I was here and didn't have so many thoughts. I even knew he had a place reserved in a family grave, I even knew he had a family grave. When I began this project about bringing his bones here, I thought this project to be an impossible enterprise. But now that I'm here I felt very proud.