Qingming

This year Qingming is April 4 (since it's Chinese leap year), so I packed Lauren up this morning along with some oranges, a paper plate, incense, and a rag and we headed out to the cemetery. Along the way we picked up a potted lily at a grocery store. Qingming is Chinese Tomb Sweeping day, a day when all Chinese go out and pay respects their deceased relatives. Chinese start celebrating Qingming up to 10 days before the actual date and up to 10 days after. Since Qingming this year fell on a Saturday, it was easy enough to head out on the actual date of Qingming.

Getting into the cemetery proved harder than expected. We had to sit through about 4 red lights to make it into the cemetary with the crowd that was trying to get in at the same time we were. My parents gravesite was relatively peaceful, but we could see lots of families in the distance gathered around their sites. Lauren helped me clean the grass around the marker, and set out the oranges. We lit the incense and made a prayer to grandma and grandpa. We sat a little while and watched some of the other families, and then Lauren said she was hungry and wanted a Jamba Juice so we went across the street to the new shopping complex and got her a Jamba Juice. When we finished, I told her we had to go back to the cemetery and clean up after ourselves. We disposed of the oranges and the incense remainders, said one last prayer and headed out to the cemetery office.

While they managed to center the marker with my parents name, they forgot to move the flower vase, so we stopped in the office and filed a service request to have that done. So if you visit, don't be surprised that the vase isn't where it's supposed to be. The cemetery staff said they'd have it moved within a week.