Happy Tomb Sweeping Day–or Happy Qing Ming Jie (literally translated “clear brightness day”). Today is one of China’s gazillion holidays. On this day, the Chinese honor past ancestors; traditional Chinese believed that the spirits of deceased ancestors looked after the family. Sacrifices could keep them happy, and the family would prosper through good harvests and more children. So, on this holiday now, Chinese visit their family graves to tend to any underbrush that has grown. Weeds are pulled, and dirt swept away, and the family sets out offerings of food. Then, they provide scrumptious offerings to their ancestors at altar tables in their homes including chicken, eggs, or other dishes a deceased ancestor was fond of. Accompanied by rice, the dishes and eating utensils are carefully arranged so as to bring good luck. Sometimes, a family will put burning incense with the offering so as to expedite the transfer of nutritious elements to the ancestors. Chinese holidays 101 for you readers out there.
Offices and schools were closed today, but shops were not (they close for nearly nothing). So, we set out with the families from our agency here with us and visited the medicinal herb market and the pet market. Yes, contrary to what some may have heard, there are some pets in China. We learned tonight from our friendly salesman Jack at a local place that families are limited to one dog only and will “have a problem” if they have more than one. He made a joke about too many people and too many dogs and how they limit both. These markets were CRAZY. We saw dried deer tendons, snakes, sea horses, and (my personal fave) frogs (I thought they were dried rats at first. yuck!). They sold live scorpions and turtles and fish and chickens. One family pulled up to a shop on a motorcycle, bought a fish right there without getting off their bike, and waited while the lady cut it up for them right there on the sidewalk. We watched as a shopkeeper killed a chicken right there for a customer. It was an education. The pet market was slightly less icky–adorable kittens, baby ducks, turtles, crabs, bunnies, even chipmunks! We saw one guy ride up to a shopkeeper with a handled bag full of kittens. He sold them to the shopkeeper for 6 yuan each (about $.90) then rode away. The shopkeeper will turn around and sell them for a little more than that. We saw quite a few loose cats today–shopkeepers like to keep them around to get rid of the rats. Oh my. We continued onto a more mainstream shopping area that was just mobbed. Check out that picture Mark took of the crowd there. Can you see why we’d stand out here? We refrained from eating lunch there though–the fried squid a lot of folks were having just didn’t look so good to us.
Guangzhou is under some serious construction right now which makes walking around a little difficult, and everything is pretty messy. They are working super hard to make this place look amazing for the Asian games being held here in November. Mark took this picture of the guy working from our hotel room window. In the close up, it doesn’t look so bad. But, check out how high up this guy was. Yikes.
I know, I know, no pictures of Lydia posted today. I promise you that anyone who has the patience can sit and look at the 1,700 pictures we’ve taken thus far (that’s not a joke)–about 1,500 of which include her. I’ll be sure to post some tomorrow of her.
Dear Evan, Ashlyn, and Drew — we videotaped the markets today to show you. It was crazy! Wait until you see all the interesting things they were selling there to eat and all the pets they were selling. Can you imagine having a chipmunk or a crab as a pet? We’ve been telling Lydia about all of you and just can’t wait for you all to meet her soon! She loves to play and giggles a lot. I know you three are going to come up with lots of ways to make her laugh! Oh, we can’t wait!
