Daily Life in China                  

Chinese Ancestor birthday anniversary honoring:

陆 Lu Jia Wan.  Lu family honoring their ancestors.

Below: The Lu family preparing a feast to honor the birthday of a top relative.  The family is preparing the offerings which will be carried to a local restaurant.  The offereings are decked out  on tables with bamboo poles attached to be carried in a procession to the festival place.   The pig is nicely dressed with tradional red decorations.

A live lamb was brought out and fixed to a table.  At the back is the Lu family citang.

Two large fish were then brought out and decorated with red bows and red paper.

The fish decorations were complete and the last of the cargo checked carefully, the beer and whisky.

The complete line-up for the procession.  The lead table has large sparklers to impress and get the attention of the ancestors.  The yellow papers on the table is symbolic money.  It will be burnt as an offering to the elders.  The family invited me to the festival and a chance to be a table bearer of the pig table.  It would have been an honor but the procession was not going to start for two hours and I had to get back.  This was in a city 15 kilometers from Huangshi. There will be some serious honoring of the ancestors with the contents of the two back tables and driving back to the city would have been difficult.  It's just about impossible to be at a party like this without drinking.  The toasts are endless and just about required so unfortunatly I had to pass on what would have been an interesting and great party.

  The 陆, Lu Jia Wan, family citang.  It was rebuilt many times over the years (probably centuries) and most receintly in 2003.  There's a commerative stone embedded in the wall inside the citang.  The stone lists the names of all the contributors to the rebuild and the amount given.  By the way, everyone here is a Lu. 

   All of the citang appears to have been rebuilt out of red brick.  The physical location seems to be in the exact spot it's been since it was first built probably centuries ago.  About the only thing left to the original is the entrance stones.

The citang has the typical three levels going back to the altar.  It's very nicely decorated.  The side doors modern but the their location is as old as the original citang.  This citang seems to be typical of many in that it was once inside a building complex.  The original buildings are all gone and have been replaced with modern buildings (probably all of the original brick from the old complex was reused in building the houses.  The alley ways off the doors, these two doors and two above on the next tier, matches the footprint of an original large complex.  The cluster of buildings makes a compound for the Lu family.

The altar at the back of the citang.  It was very dark in the altar as is in all altars. Many citang have gate at the last citang level, the altar.  The gate closes off the altar making it impossible to get a full alter picture.  The altar here was a full wood altar from the floor to ceiling and stretched from wall to all, and all decorated.  

The back section of citang altars do not have windows or overhead lights (a few do but very unusual).  This citang was extreamly unusual in that it had electricity and wall mounted light switches. The alter candles are electric. 

This is the top ancestor.  The black drapes to the right and left probably have paiwei under them; tablets with name listings of the deceased family members.

There's a few types of incense burning to acknowledge the ancestors.  The cone shaped thing is made of incense.

  Another look at the family citang.  There's 30 or 40 houses here making up the compound.  The compound is in the city (I think Tieshan, part of Huangshi, about 15 kilometers away.)  There is no very old buildings left around the compound.  On a quick walk around the oldest things I could find were the original entrance stones for the citang.  In the back there was a new house, probably 15 to 20 years old which also had a massive stone door like the citang door.  That doorway was probably a secondary front entrance to the original building complex. If someone looked hard enough around the compound they could probably find all the old entrance stones used in new buildings.

  Water supply on the roof.  Water heater on the roof.  This type of water heater is all over China..  I'm not sure what temperature this type can get to but it's probably enough to scald someone.  Years ago I made a simple one out of wood with three class layers which let in the sun and prevented the heat buildup from escaping.  The temperate got to 160 decrees F. 

   The overall impressive thing in all this is the citang and the tradition has not died out. It's my guess that many of these family members no longer farm and have jobs around Tieshan city. The family is quite prosperous and holding to tradition as indicated by the very nice citang.

This is the main room of one family member, probably an elder.  This house had the stone entrance from the old complex. Dining room table, hutch to the left and sideboard.

Below: From a differnt families citang.  Just about anything can be found in a citang. I came in and disturbed the big so it rolled to it's knees.  It was on it's side and the dog was nursing.  Either the mother is not so clever or very hospitable.  It was quite a sight but before I could get my camera out the pig rolled over.