救火 is save fire
our prc friends brought us out to 玩玩 yesterday (i love that they call outings 出去玩玩 chu1 qu4 wan2 wan2, there's something very nice and innocent about it), and we started the day by going to the lama temple where i hung around outside the buildings where the statues were housed, in the foggy after-rain morning, choking on the smoke from burning incense, observing the various temple-goers with much amusement.
and i was rewarded shortly when two bundles of incense which a short fat man was trying to light caught fire.
it looked like he was holding torches fit to light the way in the dark of night, and he also looked as if he was afraid that he would burn himself. in fact, i was afraid he would.
he hurriedly raised them up and down three times and threw them into the incense trough.
maybe it was a bundle of dried sticks, not incense.
i also saw people burning yellow and gold paper folded into the shape of ingots, which i didn't understand, because why do the gods need money? i asked one of our prc friends about it, and i think he said that it was to curry favour with the gods on behalf of dead family members. in fact, i think he even said something which can be translated to mean bribery.
but my chinese is still rather half past-six, so don't take my word for it.
our prc friends brought us out to 玩玩 yesterday (i love that they call outings 出去玩玩 chu1 qu4 wan2 wan2, there's something very nice and innocent about it), and we started the day by going to the lama temple where i hung around outside the buildings where the statues were housed, in the foggy after-rain morning, choking on the smoke from burning incense, observing the various temple-goers with much amusement.
and i was rewarded shortly when two bundles of incense which a short fat man was trying to light caught fire.
it looked like he was holding torches fit to light the way in the dark of night, and he also looked as if he was afraid that he would burn himself. in fact, i was afraid he would.
he hurriedly raised them up and down three times and threw them into the incense trough.
maybe it was a bundle of dried sticks, not incense.
i also saw people burning yellow and gold paper folded into the shape of ingots, which i didn't understand, because why do the gods need money? i asked one of our prc friends about it, and i think he said that it was to curry favour with the gods on behalf of dead family members. in fact, i think he even said something which can be translated to mean bribery.
but my chinese is still rather half past-six, so don't take my word for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment