User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: How Many Zeroes?

I hope we get those missing posts back - mine was full of zeros and I have not got the patience to type them out again.  :)

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

@pearltowerpete

I guess there is more cremation than burial because of the cost of land.  We were told that it is vary expensive to be buried in a mound on Laohe Shan (I've forgotten the he character). I was surprised that you can still do it.  But you can see burial mounds in the countryside, from the train. 

And there was a documentary about children learning to be acrobats, might have been in Xin Jiang.  One of the children went to see her parents' grave; the cemetery was a vast collection of mounds.  She wandered for a long time and could not find it.  All the mounds look the same.  A poignant scene.

Posted on: How Many Zeroes?

That's interesting - some discussion has disappeared. Did that happen when the server went down last night? 

Or was it Klaatu at work?*

* Michael Rennie in 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' playing the humanoid who stopped everything mechanical on Earth for 30 minutes as a demonstration of alien power.

Posted on: Welfare Lottery

@miantiao

I'm not sure if it is hard to find out about 'welfare' or that not many people are interested. On the other hand I have noticed that people love to talk about corruption - big and small.  It's the equivalent of the Sydney-siders' preoccupation with property prices.   And when the big fish is caught there is great celebration. 

@matt_c

I'm wondering if you had to wait a real long time for your bus?  I mean, how much did you put in before your $1,000 came up?  My brush with gambling fame was in 1987, sitting next to a guy at work who put $20 on the trifecta and won about $14,000. He then tried to impress us with his knowledge of horse flesh.

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

@Pete, jianlijiang

Traditional festivals such 清明节 seem to be increasing in popularity in China, helped by the new public holiday. A friend has just told me that last weekend several car loads of relatives drove to where her maternal grandparents' ashes are kept.  The stepped site is on the side of a hill facing a river.  They cleaned the stone over the ashes and laid out a cooked meal, lit candles, burned money and bowed.  Sometimes families arrange for a band to play for the ceremony. My friend's family does this every year.    

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

@Pete, jianlijiang

Traditional festivals such 清明节 seem to be increasing in popularity in China, helped by the new public holiday. A friend has just told me that last weekend several car loads of relatives drove to where her maternal grandparents' ashes are kept.  The stepped site is on the side of a hill facing a river.  They cleaned the stone over the ashes and laid out a cooked meal, lit candles, burned money and bowed.  Sometimes families arrange for a band to play for the ceremony. My friend's family does this every year.    

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

Hi Pete

Given your origins you might be a fan of the 'Mormon' soapie 'Big Love'?  Tracing those enormous families would be a genealogist's dream.. :) 

BTW the poem was great work again.

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

Hi Pete

Given your origins you might be a fan of the 'Mormon' soapie 'Big Love'?  Tracing those enormous families would be a genealogist's dream.. :) 

BTW the poem was great work again.

Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Festival -- 清明

My ancestors have kept me in the dark but I have strong reason to believe they came from England (sadly not as convicts).  I believe that in Europe they sweep their graves on All Saints' Day, 31 October (same festival, different time of year) because I was at the cleaning of graves in the 12th century village of Vellano in Tuscany one year.

In Zhejiang, PRC where I lived people are buried (traditionally) in dirt mounds - the hill behind our home was a mound of mounds.  They are built in amongst the trees and undergrowth.  How would one 'sweep' these structures?  Sweeping would eventually sweep the tomb away.  Is it a case of something lost in the translation?  Maybe it is just a bit of a tidy-up rather than a vigorous brushing.. 

Or maybe the idea of 'tomb sweeping' came after they started buiding tombs in stone and other sweepable surfaces.

Posted on: Welfare Lottery

Questions: How much from the lottery goes to the 'welfare system' (as opposed to the handful of winners)?  What kind of welfare system does it go to?

I asked a teacher once about the ‘welfare' system in China (ok, maybe it was a hard question.)  Her response was: ‘If you are poor you should get a job'.  ‘Just say there are no jobs?' I say.  ‘Then you can ask the 街道 jiedao (lit: street, meaning local community or local government) for money'.  It's clearly a distasteful course of action.  ‘How much money do you get?' I ask.  ‘I think you get about 200 RMB per month' she says.  I calculated that one could stay alive on our street for about 15 RMB per day, without paying rent.  Breakfast of porridge and pickled vegetables, and a bottle of soy milk for 1.5 RMB.  Lunch of noodles for 5 RMB and dinner of shaokao for 8 RMB.  You would have to save up for baijiu and sleep with a friend.  200 RMB per month cuts my budget in half.  Doesn't sound like a lot of money.   But social security as far as I can establish only exists at the local government level except in the case of major catastrophe (eg. the May 2008 Sichuan Earthquake).  The support and no doubt the rules and regulations vary from place to place.  Does anyone know if social security arrangements are enshrined in the xianfa or whether they are tiaoli , local regulations; I suspect the latter.  Then there is the lack of confidence in the system - ordinary people think that the officials give out the money as favours.  Does anyone know where the proceeds of the welfare and the sports lottery go?