Grave

CREATIVE NONFICTION

by Yi Li

          In China, Lunar New Year’s Eve is the most significant day of the year. No matter what people are doing, they drop everything and return home – usually to their hometowns – to reunite with the whole family, share a New Year’s Eve meal, and watch the Spring Festival Gala together.
         On such an important day, filial Chinese people naturally wouldn’t forget those who have passed away. So, in my hometown, there is a special tradition: every Lunar New Year’s Eve, just before dinner, my parents and uncles take me and my cousins to pay respects to my great-grandparents. We clean their graves, light incense, and perform a ritual called ‘sending the light.’
         Just as the living need food, so do the dead. They ‘eat’ the incense offered by their descendants.
         I never met my great-grandmother; she died before I was born. Mother said she had bound feet, the legendary ‘three-inch golden lotuses,’ which made me deeply curious about her. Later, when I was in primary school, my great-grandfather also passed away, and the two of them were buried together.
         Three years later, after the soil had fully settled, Mother and her siblings – the descendants of the couple – pooled their money to build them an elaborate tomb. Just the headstone alone cost over ten thousand yuan, and a circle of pine trees was planted around it, symbolising longevity and everlasting blessing.
         When I was little, every time we sent the light to my great-grandparents, my uncles would always stop by a lonely grave nearby to burn three sticks of incense and bow three times. Unlike my great-grandparents’ tomb, this one was just a bare mound of earth, without even a headstone, overgrown with weeds.
         I asked Mother, ‘Who’s buried there?’
         ‘That’s your great-grandmother’s younger sister,’ she said.
         I frowned. ‘Why is her grave so barren?’
         Mother said, ‘She died in childbirth. The baby didn’t survive either. So her body was sent back.’
         ‘But . . . why send her back?’ I asked. ‘She was married. She was part of that family.’
         Mother said quietly, ‘Without a child, she wasn’t considered one of them.’
         I didn’t understand. I kept arguing, but she just repeated the same line: ‘Without a child, she’s not one of them.’ And then she added, ‘That’s just how it was.’
         I was indignant. Adults always had their rules, rigid and immovable. I felt deeply sorry for my great-grandaunt, but there was nothing I could do.
         In traditional Chinese belief, everyone goes to hell after death, where they are punished according to the sins they committed in life. Only when all their wrongdoings have been cleansed can they be reborn. Those who lived virtuously may return as humans; those who did great harm fall into the animal realm. Only a very few saints could become immortals directly after death.
         I don’t know if my great-grandaunt has been reborn. But ever since then, each time we visited my great-grandparents, I would bring my cousins along and offer incense at her grave too. Just in case she’s still there. Let her have a little more to eat.

         In 2019, my maternal grandma died suddenly after a fall. She was seventy-eight.
         She’d always been in good health – ate well, got around just fine. We thought she had at least another twenty years. We thought we still had time – plenty of time – to care for her slowly, in our own way. Her death hit the whole family hard.
         She had given birth to seven children. Most of them went on to become successful; only the youngest lived a rather aimless life. Out of deep love and respect, they all decided: no matter the cost, they would give her a grand and dignified farewell on the final journey.
         The funeral lasted seven days, and the village was unusually lively throughout. A team of monks had been invited to perform rituals, chanting the Blood Basin Sutra – a Buddhist scripture meant to cleanse karmic debts – day and night. Vehicles arrived continuously outside the memorial hall, bringing local officials and wealthy businessmen who came to pay respects. Funeral wreaths stretched from the memorial hall to the roadside, packed tightly along the way.
         On the final evening, the funeral reached its climax. A towering bonfire was lit in the village square. A man dressed as a demon was chased and bombarded with firecrackers, symbolising the clearing of obstacles on my grandma’s journey to the afterlife. Some mischievous children aimed directly at the poor man, sending him fleeing in all directions, cursing and shouting, ‘Stop actually hitting me!’
         As night deepened, the monks began leading us in slow circles around the fire while chanting sutras. This was the final procession, guiding her from the world of the living into the realm of the dead. Realising the moment of parting had arrived, my mother, uncles, and aunts broke into louder sobs. As the eldest child, Mother walked at the very front, stumbling and barely able to stand. I followed closely behind her, holding her up as we walked together.
         In the centre of the square, the fire roared. People kept tossing in more wood. The flames leapt two or three stories high. The expensive firecrackers exploded loudly and sharply, string after string. The village was consumed by flames and noise, a vision of purgatory.
         As we circled the fire, a memory drifted into my mind, something my mother once said to me. ‘When your grandma passes away, make sure you cry loudly. The louder your wailing, the more people will see how filial her descendants are.’
         So I tried to channel my sorrow into a visible, audible wailing. But the moment it became intentional, my social anxiety kicked in, and my previously damp eyes instantly dried up. With the entire village watching, I felt like I was acting. The harder I tried, the more embarrassed I became, and the further my grief receded, temporarily shoved aside by the weight of being watched.
         This part of the ritual lasted about half an hour. At last, the coffin was carried out and placed beside the fire. The final moment had come. We all knelt in front of it.
         I felt a quiet sense of relief – no more forced crying. The monks’ chants grew louder, drums and gongs pounded, and the remaining firecrackers were all ignited at once, their deafening explosions seemingly powerful enough to break open the gates of the underworld.
         I turned to look at Mother. The villagers could no longer hear our crying, but her tears kept falling. So did my aunts’ and uncles’. My cousin clung to her mother’s shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably.
         In the darkness, I looked upward at embers drifting into the night sky. Suddenly, all sound seemed to vanish from my ears, leaving only an enormous hollow open in my chest, wind rushing in. The sparks scattered away from the bonfire, rising higher and higher, growing smaller, dimmer, and finally, disappearing. Realising I would never see Grandma again, my nose suddenly stung, and tears quietly streamed down my face.
         Grandma was buried on a beautiful hillside, beside a small mirror-like lake. In spring, the slopes would be covered in blooming azaleas. From there, you could look out over the entire village. Whenever we returned home, she’d surely see us coming from the very first moment.
         The day after the funeral, once all the guests had departed and Mother could finally rest, I visited Grandma’s grave alone. For now, it was another small mound of earth, fresh and recently turned. It would need three years to settle before a proper grave could be built.
         When Grandma was still alive, every time we talked on the phone or visited, her first words were always, ‘Yì, how have you been recently? Have you missed Grandma?’
         And then inevitably, ‘So, when are you bringing home a nice girl? Grandma wants to hold her great-grandbaby.’
         I was always afraid to come out to my family, fearful that they wouldn’t accept it and their reactions would be intense. But strangely, I always felt Grandma might understand. She might be surprised, but age softens people. It brings gentleness, openness, and, above all, the grace to let things go.
         That day, standing before her grave, I said, ‘Grandma, I’ve come to see you. Don’t worry, I’ll always be thinking of you.’
         Then I continued, ‘Grandma, did you know? I’ve always liked boys. And now . . . I’ve finally told you.’

         Chinese people spend their whole lives haunted by the fear of growing old. From the moment they’re born, they’re preparing for the final chapter of life.
         They raise children as insurance for old age, save every possible penny, and worry about dying without money, care, or descendants to tend their graves come Qingming – the traditional festival when families visit and sweep ancestors’ graves.
         When I was very young, I once saw on television the funeral procession of an important person’s father, a seemingly endless line of vehicles escorting the coffin. Watching this, my mother sighed and wondered aloud how her funeral might look. Without hesitation, I responded, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I’ll bring you home by airplane.’ She pulled me into her arms, kissing me again and again, and laughed until she could barely stand upright.
         I have no direct memory of this – I was too young at the time – but my mother would repeatedly tell this story at family gatherings. From the pride and anticipation shining in her eyes, I understood she had always hoped I’d achieve something great one day, bringing honour and glory to our family. However, as I grew older and visibly more ordinary, she gradually stopped retelling this story.
         In recent years, she’s been talking more and more about building a house in Guihua, my father’s hometown.
         I asked her why.
         Mother explained that when she got old, she’d return to Guihua to live out her days and eventually be buried there.
         ‘But you could retire in Bailuo’ao,’ I said, mentioning her own hometown. ‘This is your home too. You could be buried here.’
         She smiled, replying gently that since she had married into my father’s family, her final resting place would be there.
         I found it hard to understand. ‘Shouldn’t you be able to choose where you’re buried? Besides, Guihua’s basically empty now – everyone’s moved to the city.’
         ‘Also,’ I continued, ‘the medical care is poor in the countryside. You should stay in the city when you get older.’
         She didn’t argue, just smiled, quietly thinking about building a house back in Guihua.
         I’d been thinking about buying a place of my own too. I thought, well – if I couldn’t build a family, at least I could buy myself a home.
         But since I started working, I’ve changed jobs a few times, and with each change, the city changed too. I’ve never quite figured out where I could actually settle down, so the idea of buying a place kept getting postponed. Meanwhile, housing prices kept soaring, becoming more and more absurd each year, until they slipped out of reach for ordinary people – myself included. What started as indecision gradually turned into anxiety.
         Since the 2000s, China has thrown itself into a property boom. Everywhere, people are urged to buy homes, and countless apartment blocks have sprung up. People from villages rushed to small cities, and those from small cities moved to big ones. Decisions seemed to be made without much thought or reason, driven only by the fear of being left behind.
         Before I left for the UK, I visited Guihua one last time. The houses I’d visited as a child were now all empty. Weeds had overtaken the roads; no one walked them now.
         My father had left the mountains in his youth to build a life in the city, so I never faced much pressure to buy a home in town. But his siblings remained in the countryside, and so the pressure fell on my cousins.
         One of my cousins and her husband spent ten years working in a big city, scrimping and saving. Eventually, they emptied their savings to make a down payment on a flat back in my hometown. But they hadn’t lived there long when their child was diagnosed with leukemia. The treatment cost a fortune. They ended up deep in debt. Now, to hold on to the flat, to repay what they owe, they’ve left home again for a bigger city, doing whatever jobs they can find, just to earn a little more.
         I once read an analysis suggesting that current wage structures are tightly linked to the housing economy. The government promotes home ownership, encouraging people to take out massive mortgages. For most, their monthly wages, after mortgage repayments, are just enough to get by. And so, for the next thirty or forty years, they’re locked into jobs they can’t afford to lose, working endlessly just to keep up with the loan. By the time they retire and finally own their homes outright, their economic value to society has been fully extracted. Some say this is how the government maintains social stability.
         I’m no economist. I’m not a sociologist either. I just know one thing: I would never willingly sacrifice all my life’s possibilities just for the sake of owning a flat.
         Every time I pass by newly constructed housing estates, I feel deeply oppressed. Rows upon rows of buildings, each twenty or thirty floors high, stand neatly aligned, cold and impersonal, as if copy-pasted. From afar, I see not homes, but neat little boxes stacked perfectly, like the niches in a columbarium wall for storing urns of ashes.
         New homes have become new tombs for the living.

         In China, there’s a saying: those who die without a grave, forgotten by everyone, become wandering ghosts.
         Ever since I turned thirty, my parents have been worrying – not just about my old age, but even about my afterlife. They keep pressuring me to marry, often using fear or threats. ‘If you don’t marry and have kids, who will take care of you when you’re old? Who’s going to burn incense for you when you die?’ My great-grandaunt’s grave is the clearest answer to that question.
         I often feel guilty that I’m already thirty, and still not giving my parents any peace of mind. But I just can’t follow the path they wish for me. Heterosexual life has been rehearsed for thousands of years: marriage, children, retirement, care. One complete sequence, and you graduate from life, smoothly. But as a gay Chinese, I don’t know what kind of life I’m allowed to live. I don’t know what kind of path might be mine.
         So I took the money I’d saved for a flat to study abroad. I ended up in the UK, alone, ten thousand miles from home, drifting, searching, like a wandering ghost. No one here expects anything of me. No one asks if I’ve bought a home, or when I’m getting married. I have a full year to think. To explore. To figure out what kind of life I want to live.
         Grandma’s death came suddenly. So might mine. The only thing I know for sure is this: I won’t trade the chance to become myself for a flat, or a grave.
         If I am who I am – if, in the end, I truly become myself – then wherever I fall, that place can be my grave. Whether I vanish into dust or shine as a star, in the end, we all return to the same universe. And in that, there is no difference.