Qingming - a Day for Flowers

You could smell these, too, if you were at the park.

Enough hand-wringing over losing the spirit of Christmas. What the world needs is more spirit of Qingming. Ironic, since the mind in a hurry quickly categorizes Qingming as an antiquated, superstitious, perfectly legitimate excuse to take a Monday off.

The part of Qingming that evokes a condescending chuckle concerns honoring one's ancestors by sprucing up their gravesites. Granted, Heaven and Gary Spivey alone know whether there's any effect to such a filial cause. But consider the other half of the Qingming prescription: gamboling out of doors, flying kites, going a courtin', immersing in a world sprung back to life. Make sense? Regardless of how our ancestors' spirits are doing, the personal drama of acknowledging death and embracing life is like Bengay for a bruised soul.

More the pity if you spend today, like so many others, whirling in an electronic vortex. Hie thee to a park, posthaste. Gamboling is tough for those over ten, and flying kites in China is for those over sixty. Going a courtin' is much harder since the spouse found those undeleted text messages. No, the best thing you can do for yourself at the park is to go look at some flowers.

Pshaw, you say- don't flowers just sit there, soaking up sunlight, representing the ephemeral, frivolous beauty that makes life worth living? True, yet they will prove a balm to your pixel-weary eyes. Stroll up close to a peach blossom tree. Never mind the skinny guard grunting at you to get off the grass - he'll go away if you ignore him. Don't you dare answer that cell phone - it's just somebody bored by his own device.

Now. Gaze on the flowers. Tough, isn't it? They're not doing anything. Neither are you. Fight through all your neurons telling you to close and go on to the next gigabyte of information, your hand spasming for want of a mouse in it. Close inspection of ten to twenty blossoms will still those nerves, and silence a thousand chattering monkeys. Your ancestors are pleased. Welcome to life offline.

*** China's most beautiful park flowers, as dictated by China Expat***