Today is Friday the 13th. <Insert spooky music followed by an eerie scream here.> Today as I was in charge of some reflective thoughts during our morning class, so I researched some information about the Friday the 13th. Did you know that fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia? Or that some superstitious people have associated the belief that 13 is an unlucky number with the Apollo 13 mission due to the fact that it began on April 11, 1970 (4/11/70, digits summing to 13) at 13:13 CST from Complex 39 (3 x 13) and the mission’s problems began on April 13? I also passed out a little quiz with seven superstitions from various cultures. The seven cultures are the Chinese, Choctaw Indians, the Dominican Republic, Egyptians, Hawaiians, Irish and Koreans. Here are the seven superstitions:

1.    If your windows are open and a funeral is going by you have to close the windows and wake any sleeping babies.

2.   Don't present a boyfriend or a girlfriend with a pair of shoes. If you do, your boyfriend or girlfriend will leave you.

3.   If an owl flies across your path, it means someone in your family will soon die.

4.   Do not use knives or scissors on New Year's Day as this may cut off fortune.

5.   To prevent the hair from turning gray, anoint it with the blood of a black calf which has been boiled in oil.

6.   A coal thrown after a fisherman as he boarded his boat brought good luck and he always boarded from the right.

7.   Never make human figures on a quilt. It is believed that the figures will walk and visit you at night.

I’ll blog the correct answers later this weekend.

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This morning held quite a surprise at the local Three-Self Patriotic Movement church is Siping. They had both public baptisms and communion for the entire church. This was my first time to witness both of these church life events in China. The baptisms were very simple. People were lined up in front of a pew then knelt on the pew bench while the two ministers (one a man and one a woman) dipped their hand in a basin of water then placed it upon the person’s head. One of the ladies clothed in white (with each outfit having a single, simple red cross in the front) would dry the heads of the people once baptized. Around 150 to 200 went to the front of the church for this process. After this, the entire church was served bread and juice by these same ladies in white. The head male leader then prayed and read some common passages from the Bible about the purpose of communion then we all partook of the bread and juice. It was quite neat to watch and be a part of.

Number of views as of this blog entry: 5187.

If you didn’t know, the Houston Rockets are in the western playoffs for the NBA. It’s funny watching the intense reactions with which Chinese students watch and talk about the Houston Rockets. Yao Ming, Chinese greatest NBA export, plays for the Rockets, so basically EVERY Chinese follows the NBA and especially the Rockets. Today I was eating lunch in dining hall #3 and there were two small crowds gathered around the TVs that are up on the wall. It’s strange seeing American basketball through the eyes of my students; I’ve never once been to an NBA game (and not truly ever wanted to go). However, these students would sell all their tea and rice to see a game!

Number of views as of this blog entry: 5131.

Even though April Fools’ Day was like six days ago, I have a couple of things to talk about it. First of all, I got three text messages from students to the effect of “Happy April Fools’ Day” which was strange nonetheless. However, one creative text message contained the following (verbatim): “If A is 1, B is 2, C is 3,...,Z is 26 then L+O+V+E=54 and F+R+I+E+N+D+S+H+I+P=108. Friendship is twice stronger than love. Happy April Fools’ Day.” (FYI: I checked out the math using Excel and it is right!) What a funny message indeed.

Yesterday was China’s official day to the honor the dead. It’s called Qĭng Míng (清明) which literally means “clear brightness”. On this day and the days before, you will see people burning special paper on the side of the road. What they’ll do is put a circle on the ground drawn of chalk, place the special paper within the middle, then burn the paper in honor of their ancestors. The paper represents money as is the belief that their ancestors who are deceased will have their financial needs met in the afterlife. Some computer-saavy Chinese will have digital “tomb sweeping” – instead of burning paper, they’ll establish a website to honor their ancestors. Here are a couple of websites that gives more information about Qĭng Míng: http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/festival/qingming/qingming.html & http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa031201a.htm.

I was also a little bored during break time yesterday during class, so I took some pictures of the view from the sixth floor in Building One that overlooks the southwest portion of the campus where the sports areas are such as the basketball, tennis, and volleyball courts and the soccer field. You can see the pics below.

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Today begins the Spring Festival days of China. Over the past weeks, fireworks have become more and more frequent. I was awoken at 4 AM to the sounds of madness. This will probably continue all through the night tonight, so happy me. This year China meets the year of the fire Pig. So Happy New “Pig” Year to all of my students! If you want to read a "hilarious" article about the Pig Year then click here http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070216/ap_on_fe_st/year_of_the_pig. See random pig pictures below as well.

On another note, I fly out from Beijing tomorrow to Shenyang and will try to get to Siping. I’m traveling during the Spring Festival days, so I have no clue as to what things will be open, such as bus stations, taxis, and trains. Ai-yah!

Number of views as of this blog entry: 4400.

A student friend of mine was “shootin’ the breeze” with me and we began talking about graveyards. He started sharing with me some interesting things about Chinese culture in this area, so I asked him to write an essay about some of the things we talked about. So here it is below (verbatim). <His English is quite good, I think.>

China has a long history in dealing with the funeral, which is a part of Chinese culture and known as the Fengshui Culture. Different areas in China have their own tradition of funeral. The following is about the funeral tradition in countryside of northeast China; actually it is about the tradition in a village called Zhang Jia village Jiu Tai city Jilin province.

Public graveyard is not very popular here. All the families have their own graveyards. It is a district of tombs. If the graveyard has never been moved for several generations, it will be a lot of tombs. Choosing a graveyard is very important for the family because people believe the location of the graveyard influence a lot of fortune of the family, like property, future of the descendants and the fate of the off springs. If you choose a certain location that controls the fate of the future king, the descendant of the family is destined to the king when he was born. If the location is bad, bad luck will come to the family. And there are some people dealing with the funeral things as a career that we call Sir of Yin and Yang.

Some people died in hospital, but most died at their own house because at the end of one’s lifetime, it is better to have your relatives around and this moment your own house is the best place to choose.

Some things of the funeral such as the certain kind of clothes and the casket are prepared when the person is alive because people think the old can have it after he dies only if he saw it when he is alive. The clothes is always like winter style and should be made by the person who has both a son and a daughter, which people think it is a lucky thing and a good choice. The casket is not necessary nowadays because the government ask people to burn the dead body, but most people have one for they want a big room for their after life. The casket is made of wood. Better wood makes better casket. It’s always colored red. Some even have pictures of stories on it that is talking about the grateful son in Chinese history.

The process of the funeral is quite sophisticated.

After the person died, the family members should remember the exact time that he passes away. And then they will invite the Sir of Yin and Yang to come to arrange the following things.

According to the pass away time, the Sir will tell when to bury the body and what ceremonies should be done to pray for good luck. The schedule must be obeyed seriously.

After people decorate the inside of the casket, for instance, using the blue paper on the inside of the cover board to represent the sky, people the dead body into the casket and also put a coin into the mouth of the body to ask for wealth. The casket should be in the yard until the burial time comes. Actually the casket is not on the ground but on the four blocks that were put under the four corner of it. In front of the casket, there must be an oil light that shouldn’t be put off. People are always burning paper in a certain basin before the casket.

During the days that the casket is in the yard, there will be friends and relatives come and go. To kneel on the ground before the casket to kowtow to the dead body is polite and at the same time the son or the grandson should kowtow back to show their thanks. People who come over will bring some things, like some burn paper, paper flowers, paper cars, paper TVs and so on, which they think the dead person will have it in another world after the things are burned. All these are not necessary but a paper cow for the dead female and a paper horse for the dead male, which is bought by the son or the daughter, which people believe that the cow can drink all the dirty water that the person made when she was alive, for example, the washing water. If she doesn’t have a cow, she has to drink the dirty water by herself after she dies. The horse is for the person to ride.

During these days, before every meal, all the person with a piece of white cloth, which is called “Xiào” in Chinese and grateful in English, will go to a place where there was a temple in the past to tell the dead it is the dinner time because people believe the ghost of the dead is still there before the body is buried. Each time the daughter will cry all the way long. So if the person has no daughter, it will be more silent.

About the white cloth, there are a lot of things should be mentioned. White is the color of the funeral whereas red is the color of wedding. People who have different relationships with the dead tie the white cloth on the different part of his body. So you can judge what is the relationship between the person with white cloth and the dead, for instance, sons and daughters tie the cloth on their head with some part down to the back, sons-in-law tie the cloth around their waist while the grandchildren tie the cloth on their heads with the knots on the left if the dead is male and on the right if the dead is female and also they will have a small red ribbon on the white cloth to show it’s the grand generation. Some families will only give the relatives the cloth and some families will give all the comers the cloth.

The last supper time before the burial day is very important. All the relatives will go to the temple to see the dead off. People use a long rope to make a circle to keep the relatives inside and the crowd outside. First son-in-law or the Sir of Yin and Yang will read a document called the Way-guider license loudly, which is an article with a certain pattern to tell the ghost underground to let the dead go through without any obstacles. It is a kind of order. Second son stands high to lead the way, which is always the west direction, because the west is the paradise land in people’s mind. Third people kneel on the ground to kowtow and say what he wants about the dead person. And then burn all the paper things. Then the ceremony on the temple is over.

When people get back to the yard, a carpenter will move the cover board of the casket to let the family see the dead for the very last time. Don’t let the tears down to the body, or the dead will not be willing to leave the house. This time the family cries the most because it’s the forever goodbye to the dead. Then get the coin out from the mouth of the dead body. The coin seems to be a lucky thing to be used on the top of a new built house. Then the casket will be covered up and nailed by the carpenter.

People go back to the house to prepare for the things to be used on the burial day.
Men are divided into two groups, the digging group and the casket-lifting group. There is an exact time to start to dig and to start to move the casket and put it into the tomb hole.

At the certain time people start to move the casket. After the casket is lifted up, daughter-in-law will sit on the blocks, which was under the casket. This is called “Zuo Fu” — sit for good luck. Then there will be a son, always the eldest one, that puts the basin, which was before the casket for paper burning on his head, and then drops it. If it’s not broken, it will be kept as a lucky thing in the family then the lifting team starts to move after the son putting a paper thing on the top of his shoulder. The paper thing is made by the Sir of Yin and Yang with white paper and varies from male and female. The family can see the casket off a long way but daughters must stop before they can see the tomb hole. After people get to the graveyard, they put the oil light into the whole and then the coffin into the hole. This time will have some fireworks on. Then people buried the tomb.

After going back home, a big dinner for all the guests and the people who helped will be held. As a rule, Tofu must be one of the dishes of the meal. During the meal, the sons must kowtow to the guests room by room to thank for their help.

After the meal, the funeral is almost done. People may borrow some things during the funeral. Nothing could be for free. You must give some money to it. Even it’s a little money.

Three days later, the family will be together again to the graveyard to burn some paper and to make the tomb beautiful. And every seven-day is an important day, especially the fifth seven day rice, the 35th day. And the third year anniversary is another important day. The funeral is done here.

About the graveyard, there are a lot of rules. The tomb in the graveyard is located in a certain order, just like the family tree. The son should be underneath the father, one by one. But if one has no son, he has no right to be buried in the main part of the graveyard but must be several meters away. Nobody wants to be separated from his or her family and this is why the countryside people want a son very much. Another case for a person cannot be in the main part of the graveyard is that he died young or from other reason, like a car accident, etc

The festival for the dead here are Qing Ming, July 15th, and the spring festival.

The dead are still living their lives in another world, and we believe that.

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I’m amazed at how the temperature in Siping is quite comfortable. The past week or so the temp has been around 20-25°C, and I haven’t really been that cold. Usually Siping has really strong wind, but it’s been quite calm. I’ve actually gone to class two times this week with only a short sleeve t-shirt and a fleece. And then when I get to class, I’m actually sweating. Insane, huh? I just really enjoy the winter’s here. I know it will get wicked cold next month, but right now I’m in heaven.

On a completely unrelated note, I took a couple of pictures below on the train this past weekend. The first picture has a sign which says in Chinese and English, “Smoking is harmful to your health.” Ironically, underneath the sign is a small cigarette canister for those who apparently don’t care about the warning. Hmmm…?

The second picture shows how children’s prices are calculated in China – by height. Who cares if your child is 25!? But if he’s under 1.4 meters (米 means “meter”), then he’s got a discount. This logic applies to buffets as well. It’s common to see measuring sticks at restaurants because employees will check the height of children. I guess that is a more empirically logical method than in the US where you get a discount by age. I mean, really, who verifies that anyway? Strange indeed.

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One year ago today (11/11), China unveiled five of the “most-awesomest” mascots on the planet…the “Friendlies”. Despite the official name change to Fúwá, I’m determined to have their legacy continue on. Anyway, today is their first birthday so 生日快乐 (Happy Birthday). It’s an absolute joy of being able to share China’s “Singles’ Day” with the “Friendlies”. And, if you didn’t know, today is “Singles’ Day” in China. So happy me!

Number of views as of this blog entry: 3731.