Relationship with the dead

22nd of December marks the winter solstice and also the Dongzhi festival for the Chinese, a festival mostly related to making and eating tangyuan. The lesser known practice however is worshiping the ancestors. The ritual and offerings are less elaborate than that of Qingming festival and less and less families are keeping this practice. But my family is still carrying it out every Dongzhi. Last year 2017 was no exception. But only my parents and I went to pay my grandfather's grave a visit. Unfortunately my little sister had a dancing competition that day, wasn't able to join. That was not the case with my little brother though. He didn't join not because he was busy or anything. He rather sat in front of the computer watching Running Man. My parents didn't say anything but I was a bit upset about it.

I am upset about it because he sees the tradition as meaningless and a waste of time. I am also afraid that that is the current trend in our society. More and more traditions are lost in time because less and less people are practicing them. As we are catching up with the Western civilization obsessed with "rationality", I always wonder what place traditions have in our society. It is so easy to deem them as total nonsense, total hassle. That's why I am afraid. I'm afraid that it is a trend. I'm afraid that ditching the traditions has become the "in" thing to do.

I refuse to throw away the traditions right away. Instead we should put every single one of them under microscope and analyse them, trying to find a reason the keep each of them. Only if we couldn't a right reason that we discard it. As I go through the process of analysis and synthesis of why we worship our ancestors, I come to the conclusion that it is there to keep, because - family. In fact for most of the traditions, I always see them as an opportunity to unite the family and do something together, bonding. That is why I was upset about my little brother. Because I see it as a family bonding activity, if any family member doesn't pay the least effort to commit to it, there is no point to carry on the ritual anymore.

When it's about family, Dominic Toretto triggers!

In the recent video analysis of Pixar's Coco by Wisecrack, another interesting concept is introduced to explain the reason why we worship our ancestors - Jean Baudrillard's symbolic exchange. The relationship between the living and the dead is thought to be a mutual exchange. And unlike any exchange in a capitalist system, the values of the exchange is unmeasurable, a symbolic exchange. We bring the offerings to honour the dead and in turn, the dead offers us the wisdom, their life stories, to help us better understand where and how we come about. It serves as a chance to review your own life, force you to examine your life whether it is a good life and one that doesn't disappoint the dead.

In Coco, the dead "dies" for the second time when he or she is no longer remembered by the living. I don't think there is a similar notion of second death in the Chinese culture, but sure damn it is poetic that I gonna tell my kids about this. Banksy puts it beautifully :

They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.

I once inserted the same quote in my own attempt to honour my grandpa.

While the existentialist part of me won't believe in life after death in reality, but I would still worship and honour my ancestors. Because the ritual is not only (and probably never) meant for the dead, it is also meant for the living.