One image stands out in Natalie Mun-Takata’s memories of her family’s annual Ching Ming pilgrimage to Manoa Chinese Cemetery: her father and uncles carrying a whole roasted pig on a red wooden tray down to her grandmother’s grave in the green valley.
It was a steep descent, and they walked carefully with the heavy load, their feet feeling for each crumbling step, said Mun-Takata, a vice principal at Kalakaua Middle School. The crisp-skinned pig, a symbol of abundance, was later relished by the 40 or so aunts, uncles and cousins who came along. Leading the way was her grandfather Alwin Moon Mun, who was adamant about performing the graveyard rituals properly.
"For the kids it was a picnic at the graveyard to honor our ancestors," involving a lot of eating, burning firecrackers and poking around the eccentric headstones, Mun-Takata said.
Douglas D.L. Chong, a Chinese cultural historian, said Ching Ming — which means "bright and pure" — is the biggest festival of the Chinese year, celebrating the life-renewing spring season and honoring one’s ancestors. It’s a monthlong celebration which usually begins April 5. But because 2012 is a leap year, Ching Ming this year began April 4 and will end Friday.
"A major part of the celebration is the sweeping of the graves, cleaning the debris and overgrowth around them and performing ancient prayer rituals called ‘bai san,’" said Chong, president of the Hawaii Chinese History Center. At the same time, "it is like a big party," he said, when his children and grandchildren accompany him to visit the graves of his grandparents and other relatives.
Chong said almost everyone in Hawaii of Chinese ancestry follows the Southern Cantonese custom of setting five places at the altar fronting the gravestone, including bowls of rice and chopsticks, five main course dishes, wine and tea. A small plate is put on the right side of the grave for the San Ga, which Chong describes as a "sovereign Earth spirit."
"Everything the Chinese use is deeply symbolic; it represents a blessing, a moral or value, or auspiciousness or relationships," he said. "All ceremonies in China begin and end with sound, light and vibration (though in Hawaii people usually set off firecrackers only at the end of ceremonies). They burn firecrackers not to scare away evil spirits, but they are welcoming all good vibrations. A minor part is that it dispels the darkness."
As part of bai san, people also burn incense, candles and paper symbols representing clothes and money; each person bows with their palms together to pay their respects before each ancestor’s grave, he said.
Mun-Takata said her parents and the other adults never fully understood the religious or spiritual beliefs behind the rituals, and that even now "we do it because our grandparents did it. There used to be a lot more ceremony before. Now we just go through the steps we recall to draw us back to the connection that we could have long forgotten.
"When I see a picture of my grandfather on his grave, it brings back good memories growing up with Goong Goong (Chinese for "grandfather"). The way he would drive up in his old Plymouth and we would jump on the fenders; the way he would hand out crispy $1 bills at Christmas. He would always say, ‘How nice you look!’ when we went out."
Although she is a devout Christian, Mun-Takata said she feels little conflict in carrying out the rituals — "one is cultural, the other religious; this is a cultural experience," she said.
She has become one of the family’s main torchbearers for carrying on traditions taught by her grandfather, long buried next to his wife. Mun-Takata has made it "non-negotiable" for her three sons to attend the bai san and other family gatherings, as it was so important to her grandfather that everyone keep in touch regularly, she said.
After he died, her father, Kinny Mun, took charge, as Chinese sons are responsible for perpetuating family customs. But after he died, relatives stopped bringing a whole pig to the grave. As her mother, Evelyn, grew older, she stopped cooking the ceremonial foods for offering to the dead. Now everything is just purchased.
Chong said Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism have influenced the rituals for the dead, but "it’s not worshipping your ancestors as a god. It’s a way of memorializing the departed. The good part is that it’s used to bring families of multiple generations together. Even though the grandmother and grandfather are gone, they’re an integral link with the family," he said. "Ancestors are like angels watching over us," and when the grandfather’s spirit is happy, he will shower blessings onto his descendants, he said.
"I hope my grandchildren will want to continue the traditions," he said. "It’s not a religion; it’s just part of their heritage. It ties all the good values of Chinese family life together. Many families say it’s the only time they really get together besides weddings and funerals."
Chong said that when he was a child, the cemetery would be jammed with people during Ching Ming. "Traffic would be bumper to bumper, backed up to University Avenue," he said. But with the passing of each generation, the numbers have dwindled.
"It’s sad, you don’t see big extended clans anymore. Groups at the cemetery range from three to five," he said, because of everyone’s tight schedules and the cost of the food and other supplies is much higher.
He and the Rev. Duane Pang, a leading Taoist priest, often are asked whether people should discontinue bai san ceremonies after an ancestor has been dead for 100 years. They say it is a mistaken rumor and attest that "the Chinese should continue the bai san ritual in perpetuity, regardless whether the ancestor is 100, 200 or 300 years old," Chong said.
