我的中国风俗文化故事专辑

大家好， 我想在这个专辑里收集一些有关中国风俗文化的真实故事。 请大家把有关的故事转告一下， 我将及时转帖。故事首先要真实，是作者自己经历过的；另外故事反映的必须是中国风俗文化，而非某些短期的现象 。语言可中可英。

 我爷爷的新坟

We are a people quite afraid of ghosts and the dead, believing that the universe is roamed with ghostly spirits, which at any moment could come to do magic on us. Few of us, definitely not me, dare venture alone into a graveyard -- my back would chill the moment I feel trapped among those damp and shadowy graves. You may laugh at me but it is one of the most deeply rooted psyches in me that I find impossible to explain, and I will never be able to shake off.

For this reason, we Chinese are much more willing to believe in magic (not religious but magic) power, a power of some unknown physics beyond our comprehension, such as the various supernatural powers claimed by some people with ‘GongFu’. We Chinese, including many of the most highly educated, are much inclined to lend these magicians a willing ear.

My father was an old man at the time of the story.Fearing his own time to go would come soon, he strongly desired to pay a tribute to his own father, who died in the busy years of revolution, probably of both illness and starvation in a village jail, while my father was fighting the Americans in Korea. Feeling so guilty of not being able to help his father in those revolution years, he now believed that the only way to make up for his dad was to rebuild grandpa tomb, which was just a pile of dirt at that time, into a more respectable stone set.

Thus he made a trip back to the village and conducted some preparatory work, but his work was abruptly interrupted by a cold and a local village doctor almost killed him with a wrong medication. It took him more than two years to recover from this near death experience.

Undeterred, two years later, he commissioned a set of tomb stones for grandpa, rented a truck and hired a driver to transport these 20 some pieces of stone across the hilly road of more one thousand kilometers from his current home to his father’s tomb.

Once arrived at the destination, a “FengShui” master was consulted to select a suitable date for the installation of tombstones. But not a single good date could be found within months. Another master was hired for better luck, but again no good dates were found. My father had to postpone his project and came home waiting for a better time.

A year later, a good date was finally found. Dragging his tired old body, he traveled more than one thousand kilometers of hilly road once more. Cheerfully they built the stone tomb for my grandfather, a lifetime wish of my dad was finally accomplished. It looked magnificent.

“They destroyed your grandpa’s tomb!” cried my mom over phone recently

“Who? ”

“Your uncle and your cousin !”

In the past year since grandpa’s tomb was built, my father’s elder sister passed away at the age of 81, after decades of being stricken with illness.

In that same year, my father’s elder brother passed away at the age of 78, claimed by some due to a medical negligence.

Also in that same year, one of my cousins died in a motorbike accident, in a careless left turn, in a country where right of way was never understood or respected by motorists.

In this same year, my uncle and my cousin destroyed my grandpa’s tomb, smashed the tomb stones into pieces and hauled them away.

They feared that my grandpa’s tomb sat at a wrong location, or faced a wrong direction, or was built on a wrong date. For whatever unknown reasons, it had brought bad lucks to the entire clan of my family. As such we would be much better off to have the tomb destroyed. We would never know it for sure but we cannot afford not to take any action. 

My grandpa’s stone tomb thus was destroyed and so was my father’s life-long dream and his dying wish to pay a respectable tribute to his own father.

This is the real story of my grandpa's stone tom.