Preface
Worshipping ancestors and sweeping tombs during the Qingming Festival is a fine tradition passed down from generation to generation by the Chinese nation. However, a scene that happened in Yibin, Sichuan, made some netizens amazed and pointed. A boy chewed offerings directly on the grave in front of his relatives who were sweeping the grave, causing an uproar in public opinion. Folk culture and modern concepts collided fiercely in this event.
Event details
On April 4, the day of the Qingming Festival, in front of a grave in a village in Yibin City, a shocking scene was staged.
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The family of three, Mr. Luo, his father, his mother and a boy, came to sweep the grave of the deceased old man and pay homage to his ancestors. After completing a series of rituals, Mr. Luo's family placed eggs, fruits and other offerings in front of the grave.
Who knows, the boy feasted directly in front of the grave, and said to the grave: "Grandpa, give you food, do you want to eat?"
Oh, if you don't eat it, then I'll eat it. With that, he picked up a chicken leg and devoured it.
After the video was exposed, it immediately set off huge waves on the Internet. Many people denounced the boy as "too unreasonable", believing that this was a great disrespect to the deceased and ruined the solemn atmosphere of sweeping the tomb and worshipping the ancestors.
"This is the custom in our village"
In response to the controversy, the boy's father, Mr. Luo, said that it is a common practice for villagers to eat offerings in front of the grave when they visit the grave. "When I was a child, when I went to visit the grave with my parents, the offerings were all eaten on the spot, and I didn't think anything was wrong. "
Mr. Luo felt that as long as the worship was done sincerely, there was nothing disrespectful about eating the offerings. On the contrary, eating an offering is instead a ritual of sacrificing the whole. "Anyway, at the end of the day, these offerings will also be eaten, and it is better to solve them on the spot than to waste them. He thinks so.
Parents: Eating raw is a traditional lunch in the village
Mr. Luo did not do this alone. When one of his relatives and friends visited the grave, he also ate eggs and other offerings on the spot.
The relative explained: "We are rural people, and the sacrifices are taken directly from our own farmer's vegetable garden. It would be a waste to take them home and eat them and have to make a new meal. "
Another villager said that the raw offerings were actually based on ecological protection. "If you take the sacrifices home and eat them, you have to throw them away if you don't have a place to worship them, and it is not good to pollute the environment of the cemetery. "
Netizens are hotly discussed
Although the "on-site solution" seems to have a certain truth, most netizens don't buy it. "A sacrifice is a sacrifice, how can it be eaten like a dog on a grave. "
Some hot comments believe that although boys are young, they should follow basic social morality and eat sacrifices in front of their relatives, which is really unreasonable. Someone even said, "How sad it would be if someone ate what you had offered to the grave later." "
Of course, more netizens still support understanding this behavior, after all, the customs and habits are indeed different in different places.
Netizens said: This is the case in many places, when worshipping ancestors, eat the tribute, so that the ancestors can know that we are healthy and happy!
It may so happen that your ancestors were hungry!
"I will die of joy when I see my juniors like this in the future!"
The child's father speaks out
The purpose of the father's video at that time was just that the child's childlike words were a little funny, but he didn't expect it to cause such a big heated discussion among netizens!
The father called on netizens to evaluate rationally, the child is still young, and he may not have considered it comprehensively.
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In fact, it can be understood, the customs are different in various places, and the editor doesn't bring much tribute here, just burn some paper.
The new era calls for a new sense of ritual
Looking at the root of the controversy throughout the incident, perhaps it is the dissonance between modern concepts and traditional customs. The bad habits of villages accumulated for dozens or hundreds of years have become somewhat incompatible with the current civilization.
"The sacrifice has to be dignified and ceremonial, and it will be very uncomfortable to look at it. Many netizens said so.
On the one hand, it is naturally better to educate and guide than to criticize and write. But in the long run, whether it is time to reform the ancestor worship ceremony is also a new idea. Reimagining ancestor worship in a model that most people accept today may be more reasonable to resolve differences.
In the age of the Internet, it should not be a sin for young people to pursue a trendy sense of ritual. As long as the worshippers have admired the flowers, no matter what form they take, they are worthy of affirmation of cultural inheritance. The key is to maintain the full respect and remembrance of the deceased.