The story of Keith Richards snorting his dad’s ashes with coke made the papers here, and just in time for Tomb-Sweeping Day. Lordy-be. I can only imagine what Taiwanese make of us Westerners after THAT little show of filial piety.
For those who don’t live in Taiwan, Tomb-Sweeping Day is a holiday set aside to pay obeisance at the tombs of one’s ancestors. People typically trim away vegetation that has grown over family graves over the course of the year; in subtropical Taiwan this can entail quite a bit of work, particularly for children from urban centers who may’ve never handled a pruner or hedge-trimmer in their entire lives. A good piece on Tomb-Sweeping Day holiday can be found here.
Joe Hung also wrote an interesting column on modern observances of this holiday. I was unaware that the holiday used to be unfixed (the 15th Day of the Spring Equinox, so it fell on either Apr 5th or 6th). It was fixed on Apr 5th by late Taiwanese dictator Chiang Ching-guo in order to honor his father, Chiang Kai-shek, who died on that day. As part of a recent de-Chiangification campaign, it has been suggested that the holiday become unfixed again.
I don’t know if Tomb-Sweeping Day will be returned to its TRUE Chinese roots and become unfixed again, but I beg to differ with Dr. Hung on one point. De-Chiangification is NOT de-Sinicization – unless one starts with the proposition that dictatorship is an inherent and essential part of Chinese-ness.
UPDATE: The Taiwan News reports that Richards was joking about his dad’s ashes.
UPDATE (Apr 7/07): Good pic of the day’s observances from Friday’s Taipei Times:
Frankly, I’m a little surprised to see this picture at all. Last time I showed some Taiwanese friends a couple pictures I’d taken of local tombs (mixed in with other photos – I’m not THAT morbid), they were horrified. Said the ghosts were going to follow me now.
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