Even the ghost is invited to this Chinese feast

HONG KONG DIARY

IF Chinese festivals were subject to the Trade Descriptions Act, the Ching Ming festival would be in trouble. Ching Ming means clear and bright, yet when the festival comes around, the weather is almost always dull and cloudy. But not so this week, when the sun shone and the sky cleared. A relief, because Ching Ming is one of the few outdoor festivals. Basically it involves honouring one's ancestors by sweeping their graves and leaving offerings to the spirits.

As a gweilo (literally: ghost person, but meaning foreigner) I have no family buried in Hong Kong but I generally go along with a friend who is short of locally based relatives, who requires company for the task of shifting the weeds and junk which pile up around a rather large family plot. My presence attracts stares from other grave- sweepers but as it is well known that gweilos are odd, the fact I am there can easily be dismissed as yet another eccentricity.

The thing about grave sweeping is that you also bring along quantities of food, such as roast suckling pig, chicken, oranges and rice wine, which are offered to the ancestor's spirits. Fortunately the Chinese are practical people and so it is not deemed necessary to leave the food uneaten.

We set about demolishing the food while what seemed to be every mosquito in southern China assembled for a rich meal from our blood.

So, everyone gets fed at Ching Ming. However, you do have to leave behind some offerings, which go up in smoke. Here again, the pragmatism of the Chinese is evident. Only a fool would burn their car, or their Rolex watch, not to mention domestic servants, who may prove handy in the after life. So, paper representations of the above are purchased in packets.

The composition of these packets varies every year, reflecting changing perceptions of what may be required "up there". Paper gold bars and paper money are always a fixture, but last year mobile phones came in. And this year I noticed the presence of a two-in-one shampoo, which was a puzzle, because offerings are usually items of some value. Presumably there is such a thing as a bad- hair day in the afterlife. I don't really mean to mock, because Ching Ming is a serious business, reflecting the central place of family life in Chinese culture. Indeed, it is so strong that ancestor worship is the closest most Chinese people get to practising any kind of religion.

THE government has kindly sent me a video tape which explains the mind- bogglingly complicated election system for the new legislature. What interests me is how the senders of the video tape can argue that the people of Hong Kong are not ready for a straightforward election by universal suffrage but are quite able to cope with an election divided up into election committees, transferable votes and specialist constituencies for micro-groups of voters. Only a cynic would conclude that this complexity is designed to secure the sort of result which was not obtainable under the boring old one-man- one-vote system.

IN the space of a fortnight I have been told to get rid of my washing machine, motorcycle and notebook computer. None of these possessions are in their first flush of youth but they all kind of work, if not consistently. Repairing would seem a reasonable option were it possible to find anyone in Hong Kong who still does repairs. The shops which sell consumer durables invariably greet repair requests with advice about how to buy a new whatever.

Even in these economically challenging times the tendency to throw away perfectly good machines is alarmingly high. I suppose this should be taken as evidence of Hong Kong's sophistication, which is how it is proudly presented. I used to have my motorcycle repaired by Ah Kay, an elderly former bike racer with a glass eye. Unfortunately his health is not good and he had to close his business. The search for a substitute repairman has been humiliating. Why am I driving an 18-year-old motorcycle, the young mechanics ask. I mutter something about quite liking this bike, which is greeted with looks of disbelief. Finally I found a more senior person who was prepared to repair the bike. But I regret that both the washing machine and the computer have been consigned to the scrap heap. This is what is known as progress.