Tomb Sweeping Day and Personal Update

Tomb Sweeping Day

Today in Traditional China, one should go to the tomb of your ancestors and honor them. This involves usually cleaning the tomb area, but also often includes bringing food, etc. to offer to the ancestors for a certain amount of time, and then sometimes you get to eat the feast. …although they say that it never tastes as good after the ancestors have partaken. I always thought this was observed much the same way all over China, but have realized that even in normal times this is not true. It is very much a part of Taiwan society, but I have realized that it is probably the Buddhist part. My students in modern mainland China more seemed to view it as a family day to go hiking and kite flying and enjoying one of the early spring days. Many look at me strangely when I talk about the things I knew to be true of celebrations around this holiday. There are some postings on news feeds that have mentioned that with social distancing of today’s contingencies most communities had sirens blow for about 3 minutes at 10 or 12 this morning, and everyone was to stop and reflect on those lost to the pandemic.

For those wondering about us, we are in South Carolina with the family of our second son, Peter. We are fine and even feeling fulfillment. We are teaching our courses for Peking University online and are about halfway through the semester. The university admin will try to get our visas renewed before June 30 as we remain in the States, with the hope we can be back to China for the fall semester. It is a wait and see situation. Pryers. Things in China seem to be slowly returning to normal. We have had Skype conversations with a couple of the students we are close to. Their main concern was for us and they were very insistent to send us some face masks. We dissuaded them as mailing things from China to the US is difficult at good times, and I can’t imagine hardly possible today. We appreciated their thoughtfulness.

However, much more of our time is taken up with homeschooling our 3 grandkids here in SC. I guess this is probably why our Father sent us back to the States. Both parents are still working, and, considering their positions, they probably will continue to work as essential employees. The school system has done a good job of relaying work, and the kids have worked hard. The school bus brings breakfast and lunch at 10, we start school at 11 every day. (No complaints then about having to wake up early!) After every half hour I give a 15 minute recess, (so they can never complain either about no time outs). It takes 2 or 3 hours a day to get done with the materials usually. I am present full time for this. Rick fades in and out as needed (so far Spanish and pre-algebra). Therefore between homeschooling and waking up most mornings early to get the essays or presentations from China graded, we are plenty busy. We are here for a reason.

If you have extra time as you are sheltering-in-place, you might enjoy reading some of our previous blog posts. Would love to hear from you.