Qingming, an important festival of general mourning in Taiwan, fell on Friday, April 4th, this year. The day was warm and sunny with many people taking advantage of the weather to visit hillside burial sites and pay their respects to deceased relatives.
At Guanyin Mountain on the outskirts of Taipei, family members bore offerings of fresh flowers, red candles, incense sticks, fruits, food, firecrackers, paper strips to put on the tomb and spirit money.
Standing at the graveside with his wife, Mr. Yang shared that he was burning the imitation currency for his father so that he could have money for his daily living expenses in the next life. When asked about the ritual, he explained that he had learned it from his parents who had inherited it from previous generations.
The couple also hoped to pass it down to their young son, whom they had brought along so that he would learn to be dutiful to his parents. While acknowledging that burning spirit money was problematic, they did not want to feel wrong in doing it. “It’s a tradition,” Mr. Yang stated.
Speaking of traditions, his wife said she used to prepare a dozen freshly cooked meat and vegetable dishes along with hardboiled eggs to bring to the grave. The elaborate meal would be neatly arranged on the stone altar for ancestors to partake of before being consumed by the family outside.
Afterwards, they would scatter the peeled eggshells over the mounds of earth to be absorbed into the soil. Nowadays, however, they just bring some pre-packaged crackers and snacks to the burial site.
When asked about why one custom had persisted while the other had declined, she considered how much time it took to prepare traditional foods. “It’s too inconvenient,” she explained. “No one would make the effort anymore.”
Instead, families choose to shop at stores like Seven-Eleven because it is much faster and easier. Change and continuity, in other words, appear not to be bound by tradition, but are rather directly related to personal choice and convenience.