April 28 Saturday


Ancestral Remembrance

Below is the grave of my mother's paternal grandmother.

To begin to understand the Chinese culture, one must get a sense of the importance of veneration of ancestors. In the month of April, Chinese the world over make pilgrimages to the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects. The degree to which people adhere to the full ritual varies. I watched my aunt and mother's cousins burn incense, place food and drink at the grave, speak to the ancestor and then burn paper money. As a Christian, I offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the sacrifice of my ancestors and their role in caring for my mom in her youth.



Cremation is not uncommon for Chinese. There were numerous multi-floor buildings just like this.



The cemetary we went to was a taxi ride from the Chai Wan MTR station at the Eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Over on the other side of the hill to the left of this photo are more graves.



After we finished visiting ancestral graves, we went to Tsim Tsa Tsui where the Hong Kong Museum of Art is located on the beautiful waterfront. The famed Star Ferry shuttles people back and forth between Central (on Hong Kong Island) and Tsim Tsa Tsui (on Kowloon penisula) for a mere 2.20 Hong Kong Dollars. That is about 28 cents in US currency.



For dinner, we went to the glitzy Jumbo floating seafood restaurant in Aberdeen.



Impressions:

I was REALLY REALLY stunned to find no art museums in Beijing! In HK, there was one art museum and the paintings are very beautiful but showed little stylistic variety over the centuries. As I could see there were just TWO styles: very realistic looking paintings and paintings with an impressionist feeling.

Meanwhile in the west, almost every major city has one art museum or more! And you walk through the galleries and you will see a variety…. the realistic still life of the masters, the charm of impressionist painters, Picasso getting weird on us, almost incomprehensible (at least to me!) abstract expressionism, pop art of Warhol, Jackson Pollack (Jack the dripper), the wild colors of Hockney, etc …

Art reflects life. The veneration of ancestors is an important Chinese virtue enshrined in ritual. This ancestral veneration grows out of core Chinese values: stability, tradition, harmony. These values show up in the relatively low amount of variety in artistic styles in painting.

Western values: change, innovation, freedom. It is reflected in our paintings.

These are all good values. But there is a dark side isn't there? Could an excessive love of freedom lead to irresponsibilty resulting in the broken families and violent streets of America? And could it be said that an excessive love of tradition led China to fall behind technologically and economically?

Would love to hear your thoughts on this and other comments I've been making along the way! Please send comments via the Guestbook

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