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Published: September 9th 2008
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Kunming after life gifts and getting married - 9 September On Sunday, whilst we were trying to find a public park on the map, we discovered a small working temple in a very built up residential area by the side of the train track. The jewel of a temple was hidden by the surrounding area and the only give away sign from the outside was the front gate and temple name above the door, written in traditional Hanzi. We did not have to pay to go in, which I noticed immediately and wondered why.
We went in and found that it was not only a working temple but hid a really interesting story.
On first view, there were women eating and chatting, a very uncared for pond with small fish and turtles in and a bridge with a broom barring the way - we supposed because it was dangerous, a central and larger temple building and side buildings as well as original incense burners and a double holed space with a fire in and a chimney on top.
We walked around and felt like we were outsiders. I noticed a huge pile of red boxes and took
a photograph. Some of the ladies gestured for us not to take photos. This request was the second thing that differentiated this temple from others where you can take photographs of anything and I realised that the boxes were special. After trying to talk to some of the women, I understood a couple of words (Si Ren), meaning dead people and put two and two together and got 5. I thought that these boxes contained the ashes of dead people. After a while, we left.
Later that day, we went back to the same area to collect a developed roll film of Chris’s. It was 7pm and all of the ladies were outside the temple getting ready to leave. They recognised me and came to try to talk with me. I showed them photos of wedding couples that I had just seen and they all wanted to see. I wanted to try to talk with them again so I said I’d see them tomorrow.
The next day, at class, I asked our teacher what the name of the temple was from the photograph and also asked what the red boxes were. She explained that the name of the
temple was Zhun Ti Si and translated as ‘prepare carry/lift temple’ and that the red boxes were full of paper offerings for dead ancestors. She told me that some relations now put paper laptops, mobile phones, shoes, clothes, houses, cars, food and money into the boxes to help their relatives in the after world. Knowing this, I wanted to find out more so after class, I walked back to the temple.
Immediately on entering the temple, the women recognised me, crowded round, talked at me, asked questions and generally tried to communicate with me. They were all sitting under a large tree making paper packages and boxes for the offerings. I understood very little apart from that they individually taught me different things. They wrote things down, showed me how to light the incense correctly, bow, kowtow and then, not tread on the ledge whilst entering the rooms and somehow, I was included in a ceremony led by 8 monks using microphones and extensive audio equipment and speaker systems. The 8 monks were at the front with the ladies all dressed in brown in 2 rows of 8 behind. I stood at the back. After about one hour of
continued chanting, singing, kowtowing and tears and then a bell, drum and silence, the ceremony ended. Everyone went outside to chat and I needed a bit of a breather because I had no idea what had just happened or why so I went to sit on my own by the burner. After about 10 minutes all of the monks, followed by the ladies came to the burner and I realised that they were going to burn the red boxes. A couple stood by crying. The burning of the offerings was really beautiful. Everyone sang and chanted as the paper boxes were burned. Curling ashes flew up and out of the small chimney top and swirled around in the sky.
The ladies parted, distributed the food offerings from the temples and closed the temple rooms one by one. I realised that I had seen something very special. As I sat there with a piece of cake, a banana and a quarter of a litre of UHT milk (all table offerings during the ceremony) I couldn’t help but wish that I could show you these interesting women but they would not allow me to photograph them. I sat on a chair pulled
up for me and could see curling ashes swirling around the floor.
Before leaving, I sat with the ladies who make the boxes for burning paper offerings for the honourable dead. The floor was strewn with blue and gold and red paper. The flat boxes were lying drying across benches and the floor. The whole place was all calm. No one minded me sitting there.
I found that one of the sentences written by the ladies for me said: ‘Today, what we do is going to western heaven’. I did not know this until the next day when I got it translated.
This is an extract from the Los Angeles Times
February 12, 2008
Chinese mourners have been burning funeral paper - known as joss paper, or dzi-dzat - for centuries. Traditionally, stacks of bamboo or rice paper bank notes were burned in braziers before the body of the deceased was lowered into the ground.
Practitioners of the ritual, derived from a mix of Taoism, Buddhism and regional folklore, believe that burning paper money equates to making advance deposits into an afterlife bank account that the deceased’s spirit can access in heaven.
Demand for increasingly
extravagant dzi-dzat models is booming in Asia and in Southern California’s large Chinese community, fueled by devoted family members who regularly burn care packages on festival days, birthdays - even the day after they dream about the deceased.
The ancient ritual of burning paper replicas, or dzi-dzat, to send into the afterlife has kept pace with modern times: paper laptops and cellphones are burned along with bank notes and model mansions.
Cars, bank notes and TVs were going up in flames one chilly winter morning in the parking lot of Universal Chung Wah Funeral Home in Alhambra.
Thirteen white-clad relatives of Dam Lam, 87, formed a circle, each cradling a stack of paper models: a foot-long 747 jetliner, a black-and-gold car sitting in the courtyard of a 2-foot-tall, red-tiled paper mansion. One by one, the items were thrown into the fire licking out of a 4-by-4-foot wheeled container, charred from years of use.
Lam would need the items in heaven, his family said.
I do not know the contents of the red boxes in the little temple in Kunming - I think that it was paper money - there was no evidence of extravagant copies of real articles. I wanted
to say thank you for the opportunity to witness this afternoon’s ceremony but all I could say was the most basic xie xie.
I also want to say that I have long wanted to see a Chinese Wedding. Everywhere, Chinese couples can go to pre wedding photographers and have their pictures taken in full colour glory in rather unusual settings and in very flamboyant clothes.
On Sunday, I saw about 8 couples in front of a restaurant on the road that we live on. All of the couples were standing on podiums in front of huge heart shapes made out of balloons with a cute bridesmaid holding a plate full of sweets. As I was capturing the lovely couples, the last ones decided to offer me one of their lucky sweets. Here is a picture of the lovely couple. I asked my teacher what happens and she said that all of the couples have a ceremony and then go to the restaurant with their guests. Each couple and their guests have separate rooms. I heard that this restaurant was very famous for weddings. I’ll go again next week and be more prepared.
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Hilary
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Now that's what I call a sling!
Love the toddler on Grandma's back. Would you mind if I used that photo on a sling info sheet I do for the NCT? Would give you a credit of course!