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For Christmas, I plan to visit the cemetery. There are places in Chinatown where you can find gifts to give to those who have crossed over. If Christmas is part of your tradition, then you can find something at these Chinatown mom and pop shops to send a Christmas gift to those who you miss dearly by burning the gift at their resting place.
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9^9"64 Pink House 3135
Do today's contemporary Chinese still strongly believe that closure is absolutely necessary in order to make a smooth transition into the next life?

Call me old school, but I think meeting death without closure (ie departing this reality with unresolved personal issues) will keep the soul constantly encountering the same problems crippling him/her over & over again until there is closure be it this lifetime or the next or the next thereafter...etc.

I was thinking about this when I "corrected" the chopstick habits of a young Korean who stuck his chopsticks vertical into his noodles a few weeks ago in front of me. I pulled his chopsticks out and placed them flat against the rim of the bowl...perhaps I was imposing Chinese values on him...I don't really know...but then later he offered me tea.

People often say vertical free standing chopsticks is just bad luck because it resembles an incense offering to the dead...however the interpretation I received when I was young is that restless souls see vertical chopsticks as an invitation to join you if it isn't specifically offered to an ancestor...and I was warned that when they come uninvited they may not want to leave your home.

I've often wondered where do restless souls go when they are stuck and can't move forward. I wonder about these restless souls during QingMing/Tomb Sweeping Day. I wonder if a little compassion makes a difference to them if so then how can it be demonstrated to them when it might be too late. Life is already too short and so I often wonder if I'll end up as one of them.

Some people will dismiss this as superstition...but I feel they need to learn how to respect other peoples belief systems which may be older than their own and start questioning what they themselves believe in.

Call me old school...but it's the only school I believe in even though I may be the last one left to graduate.

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When your favorite Chinese restaurant (especially legacy Cantonese restaurants) disappears, then the entire supply chain slowly dies by a thousand cuts with it and eventually the entire ecosystem of supporting mom and pop business suppliers that are also scraping by eventually wither on the vine that becomes the final nail in the coffin that once made Chinatown a community that many people once called "a home.away from home" regardless if you ever lived in Chinatown, a historically welcoming place that no other community can organically replicate.

[nextcity.org]
The Potluck Club might be putting a new spin on Cantonese cuisine, but it’s using the same unique neighborhood-based network of wholesalers and food suppliers that older generations of Chinatown restaurants use — suppliers like Kong Kee Food Corp., just around the corner from the restaurant.

“We try to source everything, or at least the majority of the stuff that we can, nearby,” Chen says. “I like being able to have this little network of purveyors. The ladies at Kong Kee are like a bunch of aunties to me.”

Chinatown has shown it can withstand one massive shock at a time. The 9/11 attacks are still fresh in everyone’s memory — the area was inside the massive plume of dust and smoke after the Twin Towers fell, and remained inside a disaster zone following that. A decade later it was Hurricane Sandy, when the overflowing East River flooded much of the neighborhood. While each disaster changed the neighborhood, the unique supply chain that delivers the food defining so much of what Chinatown is has survived.

The confluence of these three big shocks — the jail, Anti-Asian hate, the post-COVID world — is introducing a new degree of uncertainty. Some long-established restaurants have closed, others have reduced their footprint, others shortened their hours out of concern for workers who, until the rise of Anti-Asian violence, were frequently commuting in the early morning or late at night. The reduction in restaurant business flows upstream to the wholesalers and suppliers, who start to see their margins shrink. The Potluck Club’s co-owners are both a source of new hope while also having a hard time themselves seeing how things will play out next.


“It’s ill-effecting in a way we don’t know until it happens,” Chen says.