User Comments - sfrrr
sfrrr
Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day
April 8, 2008 at 12:32 AMI just looked at the picture for this podcast and I must say that I've never seen a Chinese cemetery with such open spaces. The graves I've seen were probably no more than a foot or foot and a half apart. (And this observation is not based on just that first visit.)
Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day
April 8, 2008 at 12:28 AMThere was absolutely no sense of worship in that one qing ming experience I described above. They wanted the grave to be clean and fresh and they wanted the father to be well-heeled for the coming year.As his mother was setting the food out on pretty plates on top of the grave slab, my friend Bill told me that they don't burn the food because that would be a waste. He said they burned the incense as a substitute for the food. And then, as I said, we ate the food later. I don't understand how the Western idea of worship even came up. In Western culture, non-Judeo-Christians as well as religiously observant people visit their parents', grandparents', and spouses and children's graves on Memorial Day (May 30 in the U.S.) and on the anniversary of the person's death. They bring beautiful flowers, and sometimes even bring along gardening tools to plant perennial plants and clear out weeds. What's more, I find myself talking to my father on a daily basis, even though I don't believe in either heaven or hell, nor can I accept the concept of reincarnation (although I'd love to).
Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day
April 5, 2008 at 9:49 PMThe first trip I took to China was actually in the Hong Kong of 1973? 1974? (Whatever year the U.S. pulled out of Saigon.) In fact, I spent a month in Hong Kong and hung out most of the time with the ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine. He was born and lived all his life in Hong Kong, but his mother was from An Hui, I believe. Anyway, on Qing Ming, Bill, his mother and I went to the cemetery to visit Bill's father's grave. We took a long bus ride that stopped about a mile from the grave. Then bought a large stack of paper money. We walked the rest of the way, part of a solid human trail, through the heat (no shade, no shelter), stopping once to go to the bathroom and again to buy some cut pineapple from a vendor. (Best thing I've ever eaten.) Along the way, Bill's mother hired a Hakka woman to take us to the proper grave In a field of graves that stretched over four or five mountains and as many valleys. Then the Hakka woman used a homemade broom to sweep the slab of the tomb and freshened the carved name and dates and poem (I guess it was) with glossy red paint. After she left, mother set down a few each of chicken and cha sha bao, some other pastries sweet and savory, a thermos of tea, and some fruit. Bill took out some incense sticks, stuck them into a hole in the slab (I think), lit them, and then lit the stack of million dollar notes. I can't remember what happened after that, except that Bill and mother repacked all the food, and we walked all the way back--downhill, at least, but still unbearably hot and humid. We took the bus back to a tea house where we ordered hot tea, some food and ate the mother's qing ming dim sum. Bill encouraged me to take many photos (35 mm then) and thank heavens, since the memory is getting vaguer. I even managed to get a few mian fei photos of the Hakka grave sweeper. Normally, you had to pay Hakka women if you took their pictures. Unfortunately, I think my clearest memory of the cemetary is the so-called bathroom. It was a big room with a concrete floor with a drain in the center. You rolled up your pants legs, put a handkerchief over your mouth and found an empty space to squat. If you had to do number two, you went into one of the corners. To tell you how long ago this was, I had a friend living in Hong Kong--he lived in Stanley, whiich was a small fishing village. The real thing.
Posted on: Chinese Parks and Working as a Tutor
April 4, 2008 at 7:24 PMAmber, Jenny, John, Clay, Connie, Ken, Dave, and everyone else!!! Don't all yell at me at once but I'm hijacking this thread because I don't know where else to turn. I have sent several email messages to the gmail addresses, mostly asking where my premium DVD (for extending my premium membership another year) is. No response. In the past when I've needed to communicate with the CPod folks, I haven't received replies either. Most recently (i.e. 2 days ago), I emailed asking how to change my logon email address (because editing the profile didn't work). Haven't heard about that either. The email address thing is urgent--I don't have access to the original address any more. The absence of the DVD isn't life-threatening, but it IS the reason I re-upped two months early. Please. To paraphrase Blanche DuBois--or is it a different play--attention must be paid. Please.
Posted on: #43
April 4, 2008 at 3:11 PMYeah, that's what I was wondering. I've been dying to know what that film is--I still haven't figured it out and it's driving me crazy. Could someone please PM me on the CPod forum and give me the answer? Otherwise, it's going to be a very long weekend.
Posted on: Online Shopping
March 31, 2008 at 12:29 AMHey, guys (and gals)--thanks for the leads to online book and DVD stores. I've used YesAsia and a couple of others, but this opens a whole new world to me. Thanks again.
Posted on: #43
March 28, 2008 at 8:09 PMOh, phoo. My lack of movie experience has gotten in my way--I haven't the slightest idea what this movie is. I even asked my husband, my movie expert, but he came up empty--probably not his sort of movie. Sigh.
Posted on: Sweet Roasted Chestnuts
March 26, 2008 at 3:30 AMtexastochina--thanks for the info. black sand, shovel, so that's how it was done! A whole lot different from the almost-equally delicious roasted chestnuts we get here.
Posted on: Sweet Roasted Chestnuts
March 26, 2008 at 2:30 AMMmmm. Yum. My two favorite street foods in Nanjing were roasted sweet potatoes and sand-roasted chestnuts. Oh, and there was one woman who made a colorful cake of honey and dried fruits that tasted like a supreme version of Pan Forte. I couldn't get enough of it. My then-son-in-law, a nanjing ren, said he'd never seen anything like it. Fortunately for us in the San Francisco Bay Area, one finds roasted chestnuts easily on the streets and in the center of malls.
Posted on: #44
April 10, 2008 at 11:55 PMSoo? What the !@#$% was the movie?? And where is the dialogue? These things matter, you know.