"Remembrance" - Artist Notes
A painting inspired by the experience of paying respects at familial grave sites
This past April was the first time since 2008 that my whole immediate family— parents, sister & I—traveled to China together and visited my parents’ home city, Kunming.
My previous visits to China were separated by at least five years each time when I was rather young, so my memories of the motherland are quite disconnected and sparse. My last visit was over a decade ago in 2014, and it was hard to stay connected with relatives who felt far away in many ways—by context, time and literal distance. With all the growth I’d gone through since then, visiting this time around felt like a brand new experience once again.
One of our priorities during this visit was to pay our respects at the grave sites of two of my grandparents who passed away in the last few years. First, my uncle brought us to visit my paternal grandfather’s grave at a cemetery overlooking Dian Chi (滇池), the vast lake adjacent to the city. When we arrived, I was stunned by how manicured, organized and beautiful the whole site was. Traditional Chinese structures welcomed visitors at the entrance of the property, and different plots for tombstones were arranged and landscaped like gardens, in neat, uniform, marked rows for easy navigation. Also, there were always groundskeepers around who were watering or pruning the plants and keeping the place clean.
I had a “duh!” moment, realizing—of course, Chinese people are all about the ancestors! Like in Mulan with her glowing ancestor ghosts coming to life to advise her, and those incense altars people have set up in their homes in Chinese movies, and the show Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld… (I think there’s a lot to be said about the fact that I learn so much about my own culture through mainly TV and movies—for another time). It made sense that so much care and respect is shown in giving loved ones a place on Earth that reflects the paradise imagined beyond this dimension. The feeling was that, as their place is being taken care of here, they are being taken care of above, and they return the care back to us as well.
I was finally having my own real life experience with Chinese customs to honor the ancestors, and it was honestly a really beautiful experience that I’ll always cherish. We brought flowers, fruit and snack offerings, and shared memories and messages for our grandpa. The names of the descendants of the deceased were engraved in each tombstone, and seeing my own Chinese name as part of my family’s lineage made me feel connected and remembered by others, myself.
The next day, my aunt brought us to visit my maternal grandmother’s cemetery, similar to that of my paternal grandfather, besides that she was in a special section for Christians. Afterwards, we took a special trip to visit the graves where my mom’s father and brother were buried when they passed away when she was a child. They, along with other late family members, were on a non-cemetery spot up a mountainside that the family chose—and took quite a steep hike to get to. The route was actually locked and restricted by guards (whom my aunt had to argue with to prove we were family of those buried there) who didn’t want tourists and hikers to enter just for the climb. We didn’t mind that they doubted our intentions at first, because it meant that they took their job of looking after those up the mountain seriously.
I learned so much those two days, for instance, the fact that my mom even had a brother who passed away along with the grandfather whom I never met. I also learned about Qingming Festival (清明节), also known as “Tombsweeping Day”, where Chinese people visit and honor their ancestors at their grave sites with rituals like incense burning and leaving offerings. I heard stories from my parents and my aunt and uncle that I’ve never heard before, and about rituals my dad and his siblings did for his father at his funeral. As someone intrigued by death rituals and the ways people connect with other dimensions, it was certainly an eye-opening experience.
“Remembrance” is a painting I made that abstractly captures this journey, with the image of bamboo and trees alongside a mountain, and a pagoda in the distance, with incense smoke rising up through it all. I used the abstracted Chinese calligraphy style that I’ve been working with since 2019 as a motif to represent my connection to my heritage.
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