google translate says 'generations'
some other website more aptly captures it as 'seniority in the family'
yes
more like seniority as well as juniority
the thing that organizes a chinese family by distinguishing generations, and at the same time divides it
at gran's funeral i bonded with my 表姪仔 (nephew) over tossing paper money, paper gold, paper silver and paper lotus into the fire
we had to sustain the fire
(taoist beliefs go that the deceased receives the burnt goods from the living for their use in the other world)
(my cousin five year my senior once said something about it causing inflation in this other world) (is this world called hell?)
an intuitive nine year old, full of potential
i watched my parents and the uncles and aunts bowed a lot of times
bow as in going from standing upright to bending the waist to kneeing to resting the head on the cushion on the floor folding up the entire body
maybe up to thirty times
「够勞未報」(wearisome not repaid), the draping says
it was supposed to be buddhist because my mum arranged it
the believers were chanting under the lead of some master
the wooden fish aka the temple block was hit
then there was the gong or the dong and the clapper
through the microphone, the master's voice sounded steady and young
albeit the whole orchestra was still louder than i had imagined and pleased
(and we were supposed to be grieving in this chanter (誤 chatter) hall?)
(ceremonial was all it was, soothing some but not necessarily others)
(i had my griever some other lonesome occasion some quieter way)
quite a lot of action
some arranged flowers with signs that bore words of patriarchy
(i.e. the son-in-law with the wife mourns; the grandson-in-law with the wife mourns - never the daughter or the granddaughter...)
excluding the choir mostly family but a few friends too
mostly relatives of relatives'
among these was one of my second (elder) uncle from my mother's side (二舅父)
(because the parental side matters, so is the seniority represented by the age and the order relative to the parent)
who seemed weak and not well
staggered, and had a swollen arm
he talked of being sued
for having installed an air con that needed an external heat sink
and therefore they went for an external heat sink
that turned out to be illegal (for being external...)
he and this other aunt of mine did not look well
and it was my family that recently experienced someone passing away
(how incredibly lucky i am to still have all sorts of support and privileges to look well and actually be holding up so well in this situation)
i might offer help had i known better how their families were doing
but i had no clue
and because of my juniority it might be inappropriate for me to ask or probe
maybe i impose this on myself
or am using this as an excuse
but i did not invent this seniority / juniority culture
