Thor says ...

My friend, Rebecca, has been telling me about "going to HuangQuan Lu", though I don't think she wants me to make the journey quite yet. For those of you who don't know the road sign, HuangQuan Lu is that road to the Other World, or as we are apt to say in English, the road to Hell. So here is her short guide to some of the etiquette at a Chinese funeral:

Hi Thor,

"It is traditional to wear a black armband at funerals in China. As far as I know it's impossible to wear a pure red one at any funeral. The main colour of the armband is black with a red or white point in the middle of it.

"Different designs and colours a mean different relationships with the dead. For example, a red point in the middle of the black armband means the dead is a person's mother or father, while a white point means the dead is his grandfather or grandmother. It is said the armband should be worn for 49 days. It means the living will accompany with the dead for 49 days until the dead arrives in another world safely.

"Talking so much about funerals is not a good thing in China especially at the time of the coming new year. But China does have lots of customs at funerals.

"April 5th is the Ching Ming Festival in China. On that day, most Chinese families go to the graveyards with lots of joss paper and food made of paper. This is because they believe the dead were not dead but went to another world, so they still need food to eat, and money to use. So we have to burn these things for the dead. In China,the way to reach to another world is call "Huang2 Quan2 lu4". So when you hear someone saying "go to HuangQuanLu", it doesn't mean that he really wants you to some earthly place, but to go to death! It is an extremely impolite saying.

"In ancient times, there was a famous writer called Pusongling who wrote a widely known novel named "Liao2 zhai1 zhi4 yi4". He always went to the poor, and listened to them telling stories about another world. Most of them are very bizzare and incredible. Have you ever heard those stories?  If you are interested in it, I'll try to tell you one next time."

yours, rebecca

When I showed Rebecca's story to my other friend HB, he scratched his head and made a kind of sucking sound between his teeth. HB is 35 and Rebecca is 20. The differences in the China each is sure is the real China are sometimes remarkable. Red armbands of mourning are becoming fashionable, HB says, for some children whose parents think that it is inauspicious for the very young to be branded with black. As for wishing someone on the path to HuangQuan Lu, he purses his lips and screws up his eyes with the pain of contradicting a fellow countrywoman. "Impossible", he declares at last, "I never say that; I've never heard it .."

Like a mischievous bird, I e-mailed HB's doubts to Rebecca, and waited to see what would happen. Within hours her indignant response came winging back: "I've live here (central China) for 20 years.The customs I told you were what I saw around me every day. ...When I was at school, we girls often got into quarrels with boys, and sometimes we would say "qu si ba!" or "song4 ni3 shang1 huang2 quan2!" Yes, that is "shuo zang hua" [swearing] in Chinese."