Living in exile

Today is the first day of the Tomb-Sweeping Weekend. This tomb-sweeping event is a ritual shared by other countries of the world. But I am baffled by why April 4 would be a good choice for one of the possible dates. There is a superstition that I think is shared by Southern Chinese (I may be wrong) that 4 is a number associated with death, as it sounds similar to 死 (which means die). This superstition sometimes manifests itself as floors ending with 4 missing from the floor labels of buildings. I then wonder why April 4, which could be interpreted in many ways but fundamentally as Die, Die, would be the best candidate.

I think today was declared as a national day of mourning. There was a moment of silence followed by wails of alarms everywhere. I was still in the process of waking up from a not-so-good sleep and was greeted by the cacophony of these alarms. I wonder if those alarms somehow erase the personal grief of every person who has had loss. I wonder if we being public about our grief be a better alternative to tomb sweeping and these wails of alarms. Like just one day where we can close our phones, uninstall WeChat, and then wholeheartedly cry either in private or in public. Just one day where we can express our grief in whatever shape or fashion. Just for you to get a sense of how “a moment of silence” can be absurd from the point of view of grief, there is a skit in a show called TV Funhouse that you can look up. TV Funhouse was a show about twenty years ago and it can be delightfully offensive. It can push boundaries and was way ahead of its time. If you know and like the SNL skit called “The Ambiguously Gay Duo”, then you will like TV Funhouse. So, look up the skit Moment of Silence (what else?), which I think is in the second episode of its only season.

The funny thing is that I have attended funeral services of families with Chinese ancestry and have found “crying ladies”. I am not sure if they still exist nowadays but these ladies are supposed to make a show of crying. They are most of the time unrelated to the deceased. I wonder if we could still see them in more modern times.

Speaking about grief, it has been roughly three weeks since I found out that the tree that was bequeathed to me by a colleague was unceremoniously cut down. The tree still exists but no longer has its far-reaching branches. When I saw the tree for the very first time in almost two months, I was fucking angry. NO ONE informed me about this. I felt violated by this destruction. It felt senseless. Surely, there was another way.

This tree that was almost ailing when I got it from the colleague WAS resplendent in green. It grew taller over the years that I took care of it. I am glad that I was able to take a picture before the end of the Fall Semester. It is now but a shell of its former glory. I did not even get a note that this tree of mine would get manhandled. I wish I was given the chance to have brought it inside my office. I have not had the time to grieve this loss. I am not sure when the grief will hit me. I am only outraged and angry but there are other things going on that prevents me to tap further into that anger and to let it resolve into a bereavement.

I wonder if I should do a Zoom-eulogy and a Zoom-burial. Roughly two decades ago, a church from the Philippines has already thought of doing a via-satellite funeral service called e-burol. The name is also quite funny in the local vernacular. But it was developed as a way for migrant workers to be able to be able to pay final respects to their loved ones. At the end of the day, there are still duties left to be performed.