8-24 is the new 7-15
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
afunaToday is the fifteenth day of the seventh month according to the Chinese lunar calendar (which. I somehow think of today as being both August 24 and July 15, despite the fact that the seventh month in the Chinese calendar is not July)
July is the Ghost Month, and that sounds weirder in English than in Chinese, where it just sound pretty matter-of-fact.
I hate this day. Commemorating the dead is boring when you don't have any personal involvement. It's painful when you do. So, I hate this day :)
Ghost month, or month of the spirits: it's the month when it is believed that the spirits are closer and more active than any other month. It does not do to plan any new changes for this time of the year, especially not those that involve lots of construction or noise which could... arouse the anger of the spirits? I'm not a believer, and am barely superstitious (about this at least) but I do try to at least keep myself safer and in more stable situations than otherwise to appease my mom.
See, the thing with my mom is that I don't know if she believed it or not before, but then my younger brother got into a horrible freak accident at the tail end of the month of the spirits three years ago.
Mom swears that her best friend told her that one of her kids would be in danger from water during the month of the spirits, but she discounted it at the time. Since my brother's freak accident happened in a pool, well now she blames herself for his injury and his death.
It makes me angry that she blames herself for this, because none of this was under her control, and I know that in my anger is about as rational as her self-blaming, but irrationally, that just makes me all the more angry.
I have a big whole angry post devoted to this half-written in my head, but the closer I get to writing anything down, the more helpless and angry I feel, so I never actually get around to doing anything about it, which makes me feel also helpless and angry, but in a less intense way.
I guess it's a lot like the way some people are just a tad more careful of their surroundings when it's Friday the thirteenth, but this one lasts a whole month, and it involves an alay in the middle which is an, ughhhh. A day when you get together and burn incense and stuff to commemorate the dead?
(I'm frustrated with this post right now, because I can't think of the proper words for what I mean to say; it feels like the closest equivalents in english emphasize the wrong things, make serious and ritualistic the things that just need to be done, and glosses over the things that are important, so I end up distorting what I actually want to say.
So frustrating!)
July is the Ghost Month, and that sounds weirder in English than in Chinese, where it just sound pretty matter-of-fact.
I hate this day. Commemorating the dead is boring when you don't have any personal involvement. It's painful when you do. So, I hate this day :)
Ghost month, or month of the spirits: it's the month when it is believed that the spirits are closer and more active than any other month. It does not do to plan any new changes for this time of the year, especially not those that involve lots of construction or noise which could... arouse the anger of the spirits? I'm not a believer, and am barely superstitious (about this at least) but I do try to at least keep myself safer and in more stable situations than otherwise to appease my mom.
See, the thing with my mom is that I don't know if she believed it or not before, but then my younger brother got into a horrible freak accident at the tail end of the month of the spirits three years ago.
Mom swears that her best friend told her that one of her kids would be in danger from water during the month of the spirits, but she discounted it at the time. Since my brother's freak accident happened in a pool, well now she blames herself for his injury and his death.
It makes me angry that she blames herself for this, because none of this was under her control, and I know that in my anger is about as rational as her self-blaming, but irrationally, that just makes me all the more angry.
I have a big whole angry post devoted to this half-written in my head, but the closer I get to writing anything down, the more helpless and angry I feel, so I never actually get around to doing anything about it, which makes me feel also helpless and angry, but in a less intense way.
I guess it's a lot like the way some people are just a tad more careful of their surroundings when it's Friday the thirteenth, but this one lasts a whole month, and it involves an alay in the middle which is an, ughhhh. A day when you get together and burn incense and stuff to commemorate the dead?
(I'm frustrated with this post right now, because I can't think of the proper words for what I mean to say; it feels like the closest equivalents in english emphasize the wrong things, make serious and ritualistic the things that just need to be done, and glosses over the things that are important, so I end up distorting what I actually want to say.
So frustrating!)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-29 10:57 pm (UTC)我会读你的中文。