Qingming or Ching Ming Festival (清明節pronounced chīng míng jíe) is a holiday marking rebirth and wakening of the Spring season. Commonly known as the Chinese memorial day, Qingming is observed in several Chinese speaking countries including China, Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong on April 3rd, 4th, and 5th of this year. According to OfficeHolidays.com, Ching Ming is “the Remembrance of Ancestors Day or Grave-Sweeping Day and takes place on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox.”
Typically, in these countries, people take a day off from work and school to visit the ancestral graves. Celebrants keep the holiday by cleaning up the paths to the cemetery, burning incense and faux money (called underworld money), bringing food to remember the beloved and sharing food together at the cemetery. Often, the holiday ends with taking a hike, visiting a park or botanic garden, and appreciating the outdoors.
When I lived in Los Angeles, large cemeteries, such as the Forest Lawn Cemetery and the Rose Hills Mortuary, would experience a visible spike in memorial activities in the Chinese parts of the cemetery.
Los Angeles county has a large Chinese and East Asian population. Hence, a Chinese cemetery may not be so surprising.
But, did you know that there’s a Chinese cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota?
Image downloaded from Tripadvisor.com
In fact, Mount Moriah Cemetery, nearby the graves of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill, is
A Quaint Cemetery In South Dakota That’s Steeped In Wild West History. Building the railroads was back-breaking labor and small towns along those railroads often have small cemeteries with a Chinese section.
Before we rashly label this phenomenon as “segregationist” or “racist”, let’ s look at the cultural psychology behind this practice.
First, most Chinese railroad workers were of a non-Christian faith. Membership in the church is usually the requirement of a churchyard burial. While Chinese conversion to Christianity increased during 19th and 20th centuries, the Chinese railroad workers were mainly sojourners who never intended to reside permanently in the US in life and definitely didn’t want to be stranded in a foreign land in death.
Most Chinese who emigrated to find work overseas did so with the intention of making money and returning to their homeland. Like the Irish young ladies who worked in American factories for their dowery, the Chinese worked at gold mining towns. Work conditions in a foreign country were terrible but the opportunity was far better than facing drought and famine back in China. Work with pay was their best option.
Second, if and when Chinese railroad workers succumbed to illness, working overseas became a liability. Culturally speaking, to be stranded in a foreign country and to die there is the worst thing that could happen while working aboard. For the Chinese, it was an anathema to be buried in foreign soil. It could confuse their spirits to become wandering ghosts seeking their homeland. Regardless of their specific faith, many Chinese workers preferred to be buried at least among their countrymen, where burial and memorial practices would be familiar and comforting.
In large cemeteries in Los Angeles, one may find subsections of Christian, Buddhist, Daoist quarters in the Chinese section. As noted in the plaque below from Tripadvisor.com, since the 19th century, very few of these original Chinese graves remain. No American authority, local or federal, has ever requested Chinese graves to be removed.
If any of my readers has ever transported remains of loved ones, it is a complicated process, requiring copious paperwork and processes from both countries. When families could afford to do so, they would repatriate the remains of their loved ones to China, another Chinese country, or to wherever they now reside.
Ching Ming holiday is a type of family reunion crossing the world of the living and the beyond.
