Being a chinese is can be really troblesome.
There are a lot of things to follow and our customs are so different from other races that it is hard to explain to everyone.
So, here are some of the things that we do as chinese.
1) Qing Ming
For chinese, when a person dies, he/she is being buried or burn to ashes. One thing that is important is that he/she will be remembered for the following generations. Something that some of the other races wouldnt follow. Most importantly now is that for a chinese, there is actually a spercifice day for the chinese to visit their pass-on family. The entire family will get together (even the long distance reletives) and they would perpare and visit the tombs. Once reach there, they would layout food in front of the tomb stone and burn jaw paper to the deceased. They would also clean up the area. (Therefore, English for QingMing is *tomb sweeping day)
2) The tombs of chinese
When compared with every other races graveyards, chinese graveyard is really unique. It have the biggest tombstones among all others. (That explain why the whole can go there). Chinese believe that the burial area is the house for the decendent. So, the bigger your tombstone, the more wealthy you are. They also are very mindful of fungshui, so there are specific designs for the burial areas to give good luck and good health for the rest of the livning family. (If you are to spent a good amount of money for the deceased, you would have good luck and health for the following generation.)
3) Chinese mourning period are long
The longest mourning period for all races is the chinese. For chinese, there a few different days that are really important for them when someone of the family pass away. So, first, when one of the family member passed, it is important to keep the body for death ceromeny for up to 7 days (it can be shorter than that but no longer). Every single day of the ceromeny, there will be a taoist priest or a monk or a priest (depend on your religion) will come to the venue to chant. It is important as it is for sending the sprite away and comforting the rest of the family members. After which, there will be the 9th day. It is the day that is very important for the hokkienese. It is the day when we will burn all of the jew paper that is given by the friends to the decentent and a big paper house will be burned together as well. It is to give the consolation of other people to the deceased and also, offer the deceased a place to live in the underworld. After which, for 49 days, 100 days, 1 year and 3 years of the person's death, a ceromeny will be held with the chanting of taoist priest or monk to ensure that the deceased has a peaceful life in the underworld. For 3 years, is also the same. During this years, the close family members are not allowed to wear bright coloured clothings, except white, they are also not allowed to give red packets (but could receive).
So, enjoy the tombs sweeping day (for the chinese). For the non chinese, hope that this will help to clear those questions about chinese.^_^
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