Saturday, April 01, 2006

Traditions

As far as I can tell, we are currently in the middle of a 15 day festival to honor the Chinese goddess, Matsu. I have a lot of trouble figuring out the religious festivals around here, I think this one is for Buddhism and Taosim. The main way I know it is a festival day is these tables pop up in front of every business. They vary in size and offerings, but everyone has to do it, I guess. The tables are full of different kinds of foods and snacks along with incense. In the bottom picture you can also see the "money" they burn. It's yellow colored paper that represents money and is burned in small red pots in front of the store. I find the whole thing intriguing and my favorite part is watching the employees burn the money. They stand there and throw in small handfulls at a time. Usually they have an expression of extreme boredom on their face the whole time, and I wonder what they really think about what they are doing.
Maybe they're not thinking... the boss said "Go burn money"

Posted by Kathleen @ 1:33 PM