Do you know that, under the lunar calendar, today is the Chong Yang Festival. On this holiday, it is customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum wine, and wear the Zhuyu plant (both chrysanthemum and Zhuyu are considered to have cleansing qualities and are used on other occasions to air out houses and cure illnesses.) Also on this holiday many Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects.Whole extended families head to ancestral graves to clean them and repaint inscriptions, and to lay out food offerings such as roast suckling pig and fruit, which are then eaten (after the spirits have consumed the spiritual element of the food). Chong Yang Cake is also popular. Incense sticks are burned. Cemeteries get crowded, and each year grass fires are inadvertently started by the burning incense sticks.
An award winning documentary about Taiwan. A greatly made and internationally acclaimed documentary on Chinese cuisine. A recent Chinese movie that resonates with some of our childhood memories. Contributed by our editor.
When listening to people talking about communism, people demonizes the Utopia as something evil and violent. But it is not true. Communism, according to Marx, is a dream of ideal society form. In a communist society, people's virtue has reached such a high level that their desire for work is as strong as the desire to eat and sleep. Productivity is extremely high so that the economic output can afford all people to take what they need from the public wealth pool. When communism is realized, people self-govern completely, there is no need for a state and its violent mechanism, such as legal system, police, troops, and prison. There is no need for national border, currency, because everyone is only willing to take what he needs and no more is desired. Socialism is a preparation stage for communism because people start to pool wealth together. I dearly believed that should be the trend of human kind, when I was a child. Then, my father, the founder of the first privatized law firm in my province, obtained a video tape from his friend owning a business in Shenzhen, which is next to the capitalist Hong Kong. I loved it so much. The vivid description of human nature and facts of a capitalism society actually made me started to doubt my world view. It was an American cartoon, Tom and Jerry. It was a time around 1991. It has been proved over and over again, that a communism advocate who so dearly believed his dream and risked his life for revolution, always end up as a dictator and the richest man of the most powerful family in that country filled with hungry, suppressed people . Because, even that man filled with sympathy towards the poor in his young age, cannot resist temptation of wealth and power. I think, maybe our nature is just not that good. Contributed by our editor.
Born in the late 70's mainland China, my childhood memories: Neighbors. Stirfries. Once a week animal protein: we split up a plate of stirfried pork carefully, evenly for everyone, like a precious birthday cake. Study. Study. Study. English, math, college, future. |