My Grandmother and Life After Death

I don't believe in life after death.  Never did and almost guaranteed to never will.

However, the same can't be said of my family espeically my grandmother who is still with us in Luisha.  Like I said in a previous post, I enjoyed her company and conversation.  Due to her age the contents of our conversations never change, most of it revolves around how embarrassing both me and my father is to the family and how we should improve our appareance - in the last five or six visits I don't think there has been any new material that enters our conversations except for the odd rumours and scandal that temporarily catches her attention.  However, one new topic that did crop up during my last visit that left a profound impression on me - offering to the death ancestors.

In Chinese mythology or religious psyche - it's believed that once someone dies they leave this world and enters a spirit world and society.  One that is almost an exact mirror of our current world, and from what I can understand is that new comers arrive with nothing except the cloths on their back and a need to consume earthly food through smell.  They will never starve to death - they are of course dead but however will feel hunger. 

Therefore the well being of the dead is totallly dependent on the dedication of their children and family.  Customs dictates that during New Moon and Full Moon and some feastive days the children will prepare feast and set out a table for the family members and offer a ritual to summon them.  Often the living family will cook and prepare the favourite dishes of those passed away.  Certain ceremonies and ancestoral worship also applies here and the family members normally ask for the protection and guidance of those who have passed on.  At the end of these ceremonies, paper money, paper gold and scaled paper replicas of houses, cars, radios and anything else that might be needed to continue their life in the netherworld are burnt as well.  On a more amusing note - the notional amount on these paper money goes into the tens and hundreds of billions in unit and had been the largest before the hyper-inflation of Zimbabwe.

I can see a emotion on her face that I have never seen before - worry.  She is worried that her "life" and wellbeing in the other world would be compromised by our generation of children not following with tradition and was trying to appeal to me to follow it.  Since I'm the only male grandchild that she can actually communicate with I guess I was the only one that she can make such an appeal (though it irks me that I'm by no means her favourite grandson, in fact 3rd and last favourite)

These things were never given much thought and I realised that as I reassured her of my dedication to the traditions that it's actually true.  I reall do want to continue these traditions not because I believe in their supernatural expectations but rather how such traditions are what bind to my culture and differentiate me from other cultures.

Without realising when, I have become proud of my culture, guess it's a lot easier when the country is strong and other nationalities speak of your country of origin with both respect, fear and disgust; rather than just disgust.  I'm proud and I want to continue to being recognised as Chinese and Confucious would be proud when I say these ceremonies are what defines me.

I pledged myself there and then that I will continue with these traditions and that I will learn about these ceremonies and as the Chinese expressions go: "the incense will continue to burn"