Clock burning

A long line of escalators wound up the Po Fook hillside, bringing a strange modernity to a sacred site hosting an ancient practice.

Cranes surrounded the characteristic Chinese architecture. The sounds of construction, inescapable in Hong Kong and the New Territories, drowned out the silence of the jungle-like hillside.

A family carrying colorful paper bags headed up the escalator. I presumed they were on their way to offer up sacrifices to their ancestors.

I later learned this assumption was both right and wrong.

My Australian friend Adelaide and I accidently found Po Fook Hill, a temple and urn cemetery for locals. And a slight detour (code for being lost) on my way to 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

Our first clue that we had stumbled upon something unique was a pile of live turtles in an empty pond. I learned the turtle stands for a cautious spiritual search or path.

I felt a strange connection to the turtles -- crowded in this large metropolis of seven million people. Cautious of my journey through the temples and shrines of different religions. And on a search for knowledge of other religions, cultures and people.

Leaving the turtles behind, the long set of escalators led us to the top of Po Fook Hill. I stumbled upon room after room of urns. Faces of young and old men, women and children gazed out at me. Each block of tile sheltered the ashes of a person who had once lived and visited these shrines to pay respects to family members.

The ancient Chinese believed the soul lives on as a spirit after death. The practice of ancestor worship is slowly receding in China mainly due to communism. In Hong Kong, where the tentacles of China's government are only beginning to creep in, the practice still seems to be going strong.

As we walked slowly up the hill, panting and sweating in the heat, I began to notice a faint smell of smoke mixed with incense. Families were gathered around what looked like large metal stoves. Inside I saw incinerated paper. The locals were burning packets of paper inside the stoves.

I glanced at one of the packages as I walked by. A paper clock stood out on the colorful front. I asked Adelaide, who studied in Indonesia for six months, what was going on.

She informed me it was a common practice to burn objects deceased relatives will need in the afterlife. This includes, paper money, paper cars, paper cell phones, and even paper clothes.

(Click here to see a slide show of paper items sold in the market for burning.)

The burnings were not limited to imitations. I observed two teenagers burning a pack of cigarettes.

I had never heard of this practice before. My western perspective leans more toward dualism, or the existence of a spiritual and material world that exist parallel to one another. Like Plato, I tend to believe more in the existence of two worlds, the spiritual and the physical. While I may have examined the occurence of the spiritual entering the physical world, I had never even entertained the thought of the material crossing over into the spiritual world.

This practice lies at the heart of Chinese society. A study of Chinese villages in the 1970s revealed that ancestor worship lies at the center of Chinese family life, according to the article "Ancestor Worship in China." The living are expected to care for the dead in repayment of debts. In return, the living hope to be blessed with wealth and a good life.

Respect for elders, living and dead, lies at the heart of Chinese culture. I see this often on the MTR (underground metro) as younger men and women offer seats to the elderly.

Walking down the hill, an older man looked me in the eye as if asking, "What are you doing here disturbing my ancestors?"

I bowed my head slightly in respect. He smiled.