Tomb Sweeping Festival

An uphill trek to the tombs

Saturday, April 4th, 2009 was an important Chinese holiday: "Qing Ming Jie" or Tomb Sweeping Festival in English. The translated name is an accurate description of this holiday. On Tomb Sweeping Festival, families all across China return to their hometowns to visit the tombs of their ancestors and pay their respects. It could be likened to our Memorial Day, but it seems to hold much more importance in the Chinese community. We were thrilled to be invited to join a family for this special holiday! June, a freshman at the nearby teachers' college where we participate in English Club each week, invited us to her hometown near Loudi, Hunan Province (about 2.5 hours west of our town by train). Due to our previous "less-than-pleasant" experiences traveling by train on a national holiday, we were initially a little nervous about travelling. However, our host, June, was amazing! Several days prior to the trip, she came through with a complete weekend itinerary. Everything, including meals and bedtimes were planned out to the hour. She even bought our train tickets for us in advance! We were extremely thankful to have met the only person in town that plans ahead!

We were to depart for Loudi on Friday night and return on Sunday afternoon. We packed two backpacks with pajamas, basic toiletries, a change of clothes and shoes, and some emergency meds (We've learned from previous experience, and we never leave home without those anymore - even on a quick 2 hour trip!). We fit everything comfortably in 2 backpacks, and we thought we'd actually packed pretty light. However, when we met June and her friend Jasmine (another local college student who would make the trip with us), we saw that they'd packed even lighter: They were bringing absolutely nothing with them! At this point, nothing in China shocks us anymore, but we still couldn't believe that anyone would go on a 2 day 2 night trip without pajamas or a change of any clothing! Judging by the looks on their faces, I think the girls were equally surprised that we'd brought "so much." Anyway, when we saw how little they were bringing, we felt a little silly with our two backpacks. And now that I really think about it, one of our backpacks was probably about as big as the college girls' personal cubbies at school (which they are expected to store all of their personal belongings in).

The train ride was enjoyable as we had 2.5 hours to get to know June and Jasmine a bit better. They were extremely gracious hosts, and they each bought us snacks for the train ride because we wouldn't arrive at June's home until after 7:00 (and thus dinner would be incredibly late by Chinese standards!). Upon our arrival in Loudi, June began bargaining for a taxi to her home, about 45 minutes drive outside of the city in the countryside. The interesting thing about this was that she communicated with the taxi drivers in the local language, which sounded absolutely nothing like Mandarin Chinese! In fact, the local dialect differed from Mandarin so much that Jasmine, the other Chinese girl with us, couldn't even understand a word of what they were saying. Our hosts let us in on an old Chinese joke that states, "Every 3 miles the language changes completely."

After we'd found a taxi we rode for 45 minutes through dark, empty roads surrounded by rice fields, hills, and a few factories to June's home. June's home is actually a middle school. Her father is the principal of the school and lives on campus. When we arrived, we realized that their home was actually the bottom floor of the administration building. The family "lived" in three of the offices, which were lined up side-by-side along an open-air hallway. The first door was the kitchen, the second was their bedroom, and the third served as both the Principal's office as well as the living room. Being a countryside school, the campus was much "simpler" than the city school where we teach. The floors of all the rooms were made of uneven, pot-hole filled cement. The windows of many rooms were broken, and it didn't appear that there was going to be any attempt to fix them. There was quite a bit of trash strewn across the football field-sized courtyard, where the children played basketball and ping-pong in their free time. The electrical wiring was a bit crude (and was hanging awfully low over the courtyard that the students played in), and that struck us as a bit dangerous. Later in the weekend, we'd notice a man on the top floor of the teacher's apartment building, about 100 yards away and across the courtyard from the administration building. We noticed that he was dropping some sort of wire to the cement below, and a student was carrying it across the courtyard dutifully. We got a little closer and noticed that it was an Internet cable. Apparently, there was Internet in the teacher's apartment building, but not in the administration building. The solution was to drag an extremely long Internet cable 100 + yards across the cement courtyard (through puddles, trash, and leaves) and into the administration building. Later, they elevated the chord by affixing it to a power line pole and running it through some branches of a tree in the courtyard. We'd never seen anything like it! It was pretty clear that this school had significantly fewer resources than our school and any of the schools we'd seen in our city. Even June's family recognized this: She had actually attended a middle school in the bigger city of Loudi, which could better prepare her for college.

June's dad's school

A classroom at June's dad's school

June's family was extremely welcoming, and her parents had prepared a feast for us for dinner when we arrived. On the menu were animal intestines (we're still not sure which animal), home-made sweet potato glass noodles (a local specialty), fried bamboo shoots and carrot tops, chicken and seaweed soup, and dried fish. It was really well prepared, and I'm sure would have been an unbelievable meal if my palate were more used to the unusual textures and flavors of Chinese countryside food. I've found that food in the countryside is very different than in the cities. Countryside food tends to be simpler and more "resourceful", utilizing all parts of the vegetable or animal. This meal was pretty impressive, considering the limited tools June's family had to work with in preparing it: All of the work in the kitchen was done on the floor since there was no counter top, or even stove top. They had a coffee can with a coal brick inside set in the corner of the room. They cooked with one wok set on top of the coal brick (about 1.5 feet off the ground). The task of cooking while bending over a coal brick seemed incredibly daunting to me and I couldn't imagine preparing as many dishes as they had in those conditions. And this family did this for every meal! The Chinese definitely seem to be more skilled at or adapted to performing under less than ideal situations. . . . At dinner, we were treated (and expected) to drink rice wine with June's father. We took a sip with every (all-too-frequent) cheer he proposed and allowed him to (all-too-frequently) refill our glasses in order to not show disrespect. This was quite challenging, as Chinese rice wine is more "hard liquor" than "wine". It is extremely strong and, in my opinion, tastes horrible (as our Chinese friends often say about things that don't taste good, it's "not so delicious"). That night, I chewed the intestines until I thought my teeth would fall out and drank until the next bite of intestines didn't seem so chewy after all. Later that night, June mentioned that her father was a very good drinker. We asked if he drank rice wine every day. To this, June responded, "Maybe more like every meal." (Her assumption was confirmed later in the weekend.)

Dinner with the Chef (June's Dad)

When the dinner was finished, we moved to the room next door to sit by burning coal bricks (which sufficiently served their purpose of heating the room, but couldn't have been good for our lungs) to watch television. June's father cleaned the dishes by himself in a kitchen with no sink or running water! There was a rubber trashcan full of water (which I'm presuming they had boiled earlier in the week) and they had several large plastic buckets and basins used to wash the dishes in. These same basins and water were used to clean veggies and meat during meal preparation.

At bedtime, June announced that her mother had prepared our room. We were given the 5th room down: An old, abandoned office with newspapers from 2007 covering worn-out wooden furniture and broken windows (not to mention the giant spiders on the walls!). No one had lived in the room in a couple of years, yet a rice cooker sat in the corner with food remnants inside - were those 2 years old, too?! For lighting, a single, bare light bulb hung from the ceiling and had been attached to crude wiring strung through the window. The bed was simply a frame made with wooden boards. June's mother had placed a sheet on top of the bed frame and a thick blanket for us to sleep underneath. There was no mattress or padding to speak of, and you could feel each board pressing into your back as you lied on it! For the first time since we'd been in China, we longed for the "stiff-as-a-board" mattress back at our apartment in Zhuzhou! It was a bit creepy to say the least, but the family was extremely welcoming and pleasant! We quickly learned that there was no bathroom in their "home" and that everyone used the school's 1 restroom, a good walk down an unlit, open-air hallway. This, of course, was an incredibly dirty and stinky room with no running water: Thus there was no capability for flushing or hand-washing here. Nor was there a shower. Right before bed, June's mother brought us a bucket of hot water and a basin. She explained the bucket was to wash your face and the basin your feet. We decided that we would just pretend like we were camping and go without showers for the weekend. It'd been done before; no big deal. We just felt really silly for bringing all our toiletries! We washed our faces and brushed our teeth with boiled water and skipped the foot washing, as it was too cold to take our socks off. We poured out our dirty water and spit out our toothpaste in the school courtyard while a few of the teachers' children came out of the woodwork to stare at us in awe and confusion. We were likely the first foreigners they had ever laid eyes on, and we were definitely weird (and maybe even scary) judging by the way they ran away from us anytime we moved closer to them. We tried to chat with some of them, but it turns out that the countryside school students are significantly worse at English than our students in the city. So, we practiced our Chinese with them. Most were too shy to talk back, but we tried to be friendly nonetheless. After chatting for a few minutes, we headed to bed, decked out in several layers of clothes, scarves, and hats to keep warm. With the combination of the cold and the hard bed, it was a less-than-restful night's sleep!

Our Room
Our Room

Still, we were up bright and early the next morning before 7am to begin the real purpose of our trip: To visit June's ancestor's tombs. There were many tombs to visit. June's extended family was pretty large. The best we could tell, her grandpa had at least 9 brothers and sisters, whom June affectionately referred to as "Grandpa/Grandma #'s 2-9". June's grandparents were still alive, as were Grandpa and Grandma #3 and Grandma #7. The others had all passed away and were buried on the slopes of several large hills near her grandparents' home, about 30 minutes drive from the school where her parents lived. June's grandparents' home would serve as the base from which we'd set out to visit the tombs. June's family did not own a car, so they'd hired a car to drive us to her grandparents. There were 8 of of us making the short drive (June's parents, June, June's older brother (William), Jasmine, the driver, and us. As seems to be custom here in China, we crammed all 8 people into a car meant for 5 and made the short (yet painful!) drive to June's grandparents home. Our car dropped us off not at a house, but instead at a small clay pathway leading up a steep hill. I think June sensed our confusion and notified us that her grandparents lived up the hill. The rain had thoroughly soaked the red clay pathway, making it quite slippery and difficult to negotiate. Nervously, we made our way up the hill. Little did we know our morning of difficult climbing was only beginning!

Us with June's family before heading to her grandparents' home

We arrived at June's grandparents' shortly after 8am, just in time for a pre-tomb-sweeping breakfast! Their home was even simpler than June's parents': It was an old, cement, brick, and wood barn on the hill. The doors were just open rectangles cut in the front (I didn't see any way to close them) and the windows had no glass. There were 2 stories, but the upstairs was only accessible by ladder and appeared to only be used for storage. Downstairs, there were 4 or 5 small rooms, all of which were multi-purpose. The first room we came to was really just an entryway, but was also used for some food preparation as well as general storage. Behind this first room was the kitchen. This was quite the primitive kitchen: It was completely dark except for the wood-burning fire on the ground, which June's grandma cooked every meal. Of course, this room also had another purpose: This room also housed rabbits, which hopped freely around the dirt floor. I'm not sure if these were pets or food, but I'd assume the latter. Directly to the right of the entryway was the dining room / living room. The room was fairly small - just big enough for a table, some chairs, and . . . a big screen TV which sat on a counter against the wall. (It always amazes me to see people living so primitively yet who have a bigger, nicer TV than we do in America!) Still, the TV didn't do them tons of good the day we visited, as the electricity was out virtually the entire time we were there (which, from what I understood, was a common occurrence). To the left of the entryway were June's grandparents' bedroom and bathroom. The bathroom itself was also quite rustic (a room with a hole in the ground, elevated just over the garden). However, it was made even more primative by the fact that it also served as the barn where the chickens lived! Thus, if you wanted to use the restroom, you literally had to "shoo" chickens away from the hole! June's grandparents were great though. They welcomed us into their home like we were their own grandchildren. June's grandmother cooked us a huge breakfast and her grandfather clearly wanted us to feel welcome and "at home". Still, this breakfast was a bit unlike any we'd had before (in China or at home). We had mutton, chicken (including head and feet), noodles mixed with fermented vegetables, turnips, and dried fish. These items were a little different, but not bad at all. We were taken a bit aback, however, when June's grandpa poured us each a glass of homemade rice wine to drink with breakfast. We tried not to grimace as it was poured. We remembered June's prior comment about her father drinking at every meal, and we now understood who he picked that up from! After breakfast, we were extremely full and pretty drunk. Ever the good hosts, June's grandparents continued to put food on our plates and wine in our cups despite our insistence that we'd had more than enough (There was no stopping them!). We really needed a nap, and it was only 9am! . . .

Us with June's family (including grandparents) at her grandparents' home

The entryway to June's grandparents' home. Food was also prepared here (this is a cutting board, where there were cutting LOTS of peppers!).

David in the dining room before breakfast

Her grandparents sure had a nice view from the front of the house!

Unfortunately for us, the next item on the agenda was visiting June's ancestors' tombs. This involved trudging up steep hillsides on paths made of deep, wet, red clay (which managed to be both slippery and sticky at the same time). This would have been a tough task for us anyway, and the excess food and rice wine certainly didn't help. We left June's grandparents' house and walked around the mountain until we reached another trail. There, about 20 of June's other relatives were waiting for us. There were aunts, uncles, cousins, and "Grandpa and Grandma #7". After a quick greeting and introduction, we began our trek up another hill to the first set of tombs. On this trip, we determined that Chinese people either (a) are excellent hikers or (b) have no fear. Maybe both are true. June's relatives went up the slick trail so quickly! Even the members of our group who were in their seventies seemed to fly up the mountain. The amazing thing was that none of their group was wearing particularly great hiking shoes, nor were they paying particular attention to where they were stepping to make sure the ground was firm and not too slick. Honestly, I think their strategy was just to keep their feet on the ground for as little time as possible to give their feet less time to get stuck in the mud or slip in it. Whatever their strategy, it worked. They beat us to the top of the hill by a long way.

Along our walk

Our travelling party

June's family plot

Lots of firecrackers were set off to scare away evil spirits, as you can see from all the red on the ground!

Once we got to the top of the first big hill, June's relatives were already at work on the tombs. The holiday is called "Tomb Sweeping Festival", and one of the primary activities on this day is to clean or "sweep" them. However, since most of the tombs are just holes dug into the hillside, there wasn't a lot of "sweeping" going on. Instead, a hoe was the implement of choice, as it was better suited than a broom to remove the weeds and other unwanted growth. Tomb Sweeping Festival is about more than just cleaning off graves, though. Families also burn fake money over the graves to give their ancestors wealth in the afterlife. Headstones are decorated with colorful paper streamers, and family members each bowed three times over the graves. Last, firecrackers are set off over the graves in order to scare away evil spirits. June's family wasn't taking any chances when it came to making sure that the evil spirits were sufficiently scared off! They'd come prepared to light off big spools of firecrackers, each about 1 foot in diameter, over each ancestor's grave. We were a little concerned as we watched June's uncles lighting these firecrackers. First, they were smoking cigarettes as they lit the firerackers, which just seemed a little unsafe. Second, they would light one end of the roll of fireworks while still holding the other end. We cringed a bit as we watched the "pops" of the fireworks move closer and closer to their hand before they finally threw the roll to the ground. Last, when they would finally release the roll of fireworks from their grip, they'd often throw them onto or near trees, bushes, or whatever else was growing near the tombs. We thought they were awfully lucky that it was a rainy day! Being on a hillside, there was nowhere to go to escape the flying debris. June's dad didn't light off any fireworks. He had a more "old-fashioned" method of scaring away the evil spirits. He had what was basically just a gun that didn't fire bullets. He'd shove gunpowder down its barrel, light it, and . . . BAM! The noise was incredibly loud and echoed for seconds through the hills. I'm fairly certain the evil spirits were scared away by June's father alone. All this made Tomb Sweeping Festival a noisy and smoky affair. Other than June's father and the few uncles who were lighting off fireworks (who looked quite satisfied with their "firepower"), most of the group didn't seem to enjoy the noise and smoke. Still everyone tolerated it, and nobody outwardly complained. For the next several hours, we trekked through the hills visiting more of June's ancestors tombs. The ritual was the same at each one, and the walks to each tomb were all equally challenging. On our way to one of the tombs, we saw a small, old woman squatting alone along the path. She was watching two cows graze on the hillside. When we saw her all we could think was, "How in the heck did you get all the way up here?" She seemed very excited to see our group, and it turned out that this was June's "Grandma #3" and she couldn't come visit the tombs with us because she had to look after her cows.

Grandma # 3 watching her cows

After all the tombs had been visited, we were tired and covered in mud up to our knees. (On the positive side, we were no longer drunk - however that would change again by lunch). We made our way back to June's grandparents' home for the next meal. We were completely covered in mud and began the difficult task of cleaning our shoes and pants from a bucket. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at June's grandparents', playing games, and enjoying the great scenery from their front porch. In truth, we were incredibly tired, full, and chilled to the bone from the rain and cold air entering the open doorway. After we left, June showed us to a 200 year old wooden house nearby that had once belonged to her family. Apparently, years ago the government had seen the house's historical value and bought it from the family. It was big: 3 stories tall. You could tell it was once an amazing house (and I'm sure it held many great stories from "Old China"). However, despite government protection, there was no attempt at preserving or restoring the house. It was wearing down and had been looted many times before. There was nothing preventing anyone from just walking inside, and I got the idea that no one was really in charge of keeping it up. Still, June was proud of her family's heritage there, and was eager to show it to us!

After our walk, we were so muddy!

June's family's old house

We spent another night and a half-day with June's family, and they continued to be amazing hosts. There were more big meals (where we had our first taste of pig feet and of course, more rice wine), and her father even taught us how to write a few Chinese characters (her family took great pride in their writing, and they practiced frequently). Her mother gave us one of the two pieces of artwork hanging on their walls; A cross-stitch that she'd finished about a month ago which had taken about 2 months to complete. Of course, we told her that we could not possibly take that from her. In the end, she insisted, and we ended up taking a cross-stitch of a baby riding on the wings of a blue butterfly home with us. June's father wrote a note to us in Chinese stating that he thought it was great to have friends from other parts of the world, and that he was so happy to have met us. It was really nice!

David trying to write in Chinese

The end of the weekend, saying goodbye to our new friends. Also pictured is the gift they gave us.

A crowded train ride home . . .

After 2 days and 2 nights with June's family, we headed back on a crowded train home to Zhuzhou.

To be honest, we were pretty excited to be headed towards the "comforts" of our own home (we'd never before thought of our dorm at school as being very comfortable, but now we sure did!). We joke now that the weekend of mattress-less beds, showering from a bucket, trudging uphill through mud, and drinking hard liquor for breakfast was a bit like "China Boot Camp." Still, the experience was once in a lifetime, and it helped us understand the daily lives of our friends, colleagues, and students from the countryside!