Thinking about love part 2: Feeding the dead

[dismallyoriented]

So I've been watching Crash Course: Religion, because despite it being kind of a hot-button and not always well-handled topic (gestures at the reality of the US being a deeply Christianity-centric place), they've managed to make a pretty solid primer that discusses and teaches religions on their own terms, instead of through a Christianity-tinted lens. I'm pretty sure the first video of theirs I watched was the African Diasporic Religions one, and very soon after the Chinese Popular Religion video followed.

I would highly recommend both videos (and frankly the entire rest of the series, if it's of interest - naturally it's very 101 basics due to the nature of being a short-form video series, but a good primer is a good primer). But the topic of interest for this post is about the Ghost Festival, which is the main topic the video centered on.

In short, it's a holiday kind of like Día de los Muertos. The spirits of the dead have returned to Earth, so the living leave offerings and food for their departed relatives, burn paper money (and other paper replica objects^[1]) so the smoke can carry to the dead, and have a big party about it. It's admittedly not something I've ever celebrated - needless to say it's not exactly a big thing in the US, so I've had no occasion to. But the idea of leaving food and other offerings for the dead is something that stuck with me, because it features a lot in Chinese funerary practice. I remember the one time my parents took me to visit a relative's grave in China - we brought oranges, they lit incense, and they got on their knees and bowed before the tombstone. My mom mentioned specifically wanting to teach me these traditions, and well. Boy howdy did it stick.

There's another relevant part from the Crash Course video, which is that the comments section contains my favorite anecdote from any of these videos so far. It's someone recounting an anecdote from their grandma, and a funny bit of cultural exchange.

greenblaze9189

When my grandmother was a young woman growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, a mischievious cousin of hers once went to a member of the Chinese diaspora and asked "why do you leave bowls of rice by grave sites? When are the dead going to come up and eat the rice". He received a response "the same time your dead come up to smell your flowers"

Fantastic response. Five million points for you random old Chinese guy in the Caribbean.

Anyway. I shared that comment a bunch of places and some folks thought that was actually a really interesting way to think about the practice. And like. In all honesty that's largely the way I think about it for myself? Because like. I know the dead are not going to be able to eat anything I leave for them. They're dead. (And frankly, the ecologist and Chinese guy in me is grumbling about potential food waste.) So the significance for me lies entirely in the doing of the act. Doing it is a sign of how much they matter to me.

In life, making food is a way I can care for my loved ones. Cooking from scratch is something I love to do, and something I get a lot of enjoyment and meaning from. Making food for the dead is just an extension of this. It is the step up from burning incense and bowing at the tomb. This is what you do for the dead. This is a way you can love them even though they are gone.

Tl;dr - I am shaking hands with the Oaxacans and other Mexicans who celebrate Día de los Muertos. Same hat, different background.

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[1] I am delighted to inform you that these offerings have arrived to the 21st century, in that you can burn paper smartphones and sports cars if it so pleases you. Humans are gonna human, lmao.^[return]

[2] Funny familial anecdote also - one of my uncles saw his grandma setting an empty table when he was staying at her village as a young kid, and told his parents that "grandma was making dinner for no one". They proceeded to tell him very firmly that it was shut-the-fuck-up friday, because the Cultural Revolution was happening at the time and openly doing that kind of folk practice was Rather Illegal. Shut the fuck up and let grandma make food for her husband in peace.

Comments

[lb_lee]

Mori: hungryghosts told us about this holiday! A most excellent holiday. (They also told us about deep fried ghost and have PROMISED that should we ever meet in person, we will eat it together.)

Our ED ass can't handle giving food to ghosts ("CANNOT WASTE FOOD") OR eating it ourself ("SO RUDE"), so instead we do labor for them. Reminds me, we need to do a rite for Kittysocks, a neighborhood cat twenty years ago, we just haven't figured out what we labor we could do for a cat. Hmm...

Totally planning to eat Trump in effigy at some point, though. Roast pig, maybe... or a yam...

[dismallyoriented]

Belated af, it sounds like deep fried ghost is a Cantonese name for it, I've only ever known it by the oil stick name. And they do fuck severely, they're one of my favorite foods. That brief time period when McDonalds was doing doughnut sticks, someone on the Chinese blog site Wenxuecheng realized if you asked for the sticks without powdered sugar, they tasted exactly like you tiao. My parents and loads of other were buying them like weekly lmao. McDonalds could've cornered a very devoted market had they not stopped selling them.

I am also not sure what labor could be done for a cat. Most of the ones I can think of have to do with food or grooming. Maybe performing a representative act something along those lines.

[lb_lee]

I didn’t even know McDonalds did that! A lost opportunity. (Seriously, has want to try it so bad. With hungryghosts otherwise it doesn’t count.)

Maybe we could do something nice for a LIVING cat. Vicarious feline service!

[dismallyoriented]

Oh! Yes, that'd be a great option. Like making a donation in someone else's honor.

[lb_lee]

Totally. Hmm, will have to find an appropriate thing. Surely all the cat owners we know can name a good cat shelter to donate to or something...

[acorn_squash]

I love that retort! Brilliant.

Let grandma make food for her husband <3

I read an anecdote once about a grave that was found in a remote place, marked with a rudimentary cross with burnt offerings nearby. The body was that of a shipwrecked sailor, I think. The people who found the grave guessed that that whoever discovered the body saw that he was white and buried him under a cross on the assumption that he was Christian - and then burnt some joss paper for him, just in case.

In Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho, there's a short story where a character attends Bon Odori while visiting Japan. While she's there, she sees the ghost of her past self and asks how the ghost got there, and the ghost promptly says, "WTF? Did you just hear there'd be dancing and join in without asking any questions? This is the Hungry Ghost Festival! They do it at a different time because they use the Gregorian calendar, that's all. I was invited!" And she's like... oh.

[dismallyoriented]

Oh, that's a very sweet anecdote as well. It's true though, that mourning is for the living and so you mourn best with the traditions that feel true to you, even as you make your best guess for what the mystery person might have wanted. My wife is white American, and I'd probably burn something for her & the system too.

On a related note, while talking this out with some other internet friends, a Malay friend mentioned his mom teaching him the traditions, and then also being told, "well, maybe not for your Christian ancestors, but you can do it for the Buddhists."

[synecdoches]

As a result of seeing this post, we have just finished watching the entire Crash Course Religions playlist. I like how it's handled, overall. The implicit emphasis on critical thinking is good; very necessary these days. --Paul

[dismallyoriented]

It's a great series! A lot of non-Christians in my life have Understandable gripes about how most popular conceptions of religion (including the field of theology & religious anthropology in general) all have a Christianity-centered approach. Jewish folks in particular have bones to pick with the popular Christian conception of Judaism as a sort of relict, solely a precursor to Christianity (in addition to the Usual Antisemitism). That viewpoint is both limited and fails to capture Judaism as a living tradition, one that exists in its own right, has very divergent beliefs/principles/theology from Christianity, and has evolved and changed from pre-Christian times. Ultimately CC: Religions is an introductory series, and there are lots of things it leaves out, or still ends up taking from a Christianity-centered viewpoint (see the episode on Afterlives). But it does a pretty good job at just. Stating the fact that Christianity is a Specific Religion and that other religions behave and structure themselves quite differently. Because that's a foundational premise that a lot of the general public just Don't Grasp unless they themselves live in truly multi-faith communities.