Views of a Chinese Graveyard

In the hilly region towards the centre of the Prince of Wales Island – or Pe Nang as it is called – is the old town of Bilak Pulau. Stranded there an entire afternoon awaiting return buses to George Town the present author wandered into the surrounding jungle and about three miles out of town encountered an old traditional Chinese cemetery. The photographs on this page are views of the cemetery, the graves and the funerary art from that site, along with a few rudimentary notes on the symbolism of Chinese graves. 

The Chinese constitute an ethnic majority in modern Pe Nang – the only area of the Malay peninsula or the Malacca Straits where they do so – and have been an established community for many centuries. Although there are a few graves from recent times, this cemetery is from an older era and is the burial place of many of the progenitors and ancestors of the illustrious Chinese clans who still populate the island. These were Chinese – mainly from southern China – who ventured to the Straits in search of fortune, or at least a better life. 

Although remote and buried in forest, the cemetery is still tended. In the photos shown on this page readers will notice the profusion of slips of paper strewn all about; this is from a recent festival in which graves are decorated with messages to the dead, as in this instance:

The remarkable thing about traditional Chinese graves is their shape. In contrast to the boxed rectilinear graves of Europeans, they are almost always semi-circular in shape, or what is often described as 'horseshoe' shaped, or else the shape of the Greek letter omega. The deceased is buried with the head at the top of this curved shape and so the "head stone" is actually where the feet are. Burial is usually quite shallow - compared to the mandatory six feet of the european grave - and so a tumulus or mound is usually shaped over the area inside the omega/horseshoe. The grave therefore is elevated above ground level.

There is much discussion about the significance and meaning of the curved burial plot, although very little of it is informative or sensible. As with nearly all things Chinese, readers will find an abundance of reports stating that the shape is regarded as "lucky" and is designed to bring "good luck" to the deceased in the afterlife. This tells us nothing. 

More useful are accounts that tell us that the shape is developed from the theories and practices of feng sui - Chinese geomancy - where it is considered beneficial for the dead to be buried in a valley or a concave formation of hills; where this is lacking then the grave itself is mounded up and shaped accordingly. This is evident in the graveyard depicted here. It is, as it happens, on a western-facing hillside that conforms in part to the feng sui requirements, and clearly individual graves have been shaped into small hills to accentuate the natural lay of the earth in an appropriate way. 

Other accounts of the omega/horseshoe grave remark upon the fact that sometimes the tumulus is decorated like a tortoise shell, and so the entire construction seems to allude to the shape of a tortoise. Why? Because, we are again told, "tortoises are good luck." Certainly, but why? The key idea is that the tortoise shell is cosmological. This is a very common symbolism found throughout Chinese cosmology (and the Chinese tradition is strongly cosmological.) The symbolism concerns an over-arching shell such as the sky is supposed to be in traditional cosmological understandings. The grave then becomes a microcosm of the world. There is, however, also the fact that tortoises, according to legend, are supposed to seek out a suitable (re: "lucky") place to die. By making the grave tortoise-like it becomes - by extension - a good place for the dead to be buried. It is, in any case, all about a suitable location. For the traditional Chinese the location of the grave is paramount. 

What most accounts of Chinese burial practices neglect to mention, though, is that - very obviously - the shape of the traditional grave is uterine. The earth is a womb. The grave is the uterus. The dead await rebirth (either by resurrection or in the Pureland - Chinese accounts of the afterlife are diverse.) The shapes and curves of the Chinese grave are, in any case, distinctly feminine. This is the deepest, most primordial and most important symbolism. Compared to the utilitarian Western burial box (coffin) the Chinese grave is distinctly anatomical and the curved shapes emphasise the idea of the earth as womb, the living earth, which is the key underlying metaphor of geomancy. Chinese burial practices are above all geomantic. This fact is on display everywhere in a traditional Chinese cemetery. We will hopefully have occasion to explore this further at a later date. 

Note the semi-circular "forecourt" in front of the grave marker and the lines of salt that families draw at various points around grounds along with offerings to the dead. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

On Octagons

As reported in a previous post – here – the moment one ventures from the Indian world into the Chinese world one is confronted by a wash of the lucky colour red. Red, or more correctly vermillion, or cinnabar, is the colour of the Chinese and Chinese-influenced traditions. It is very conspicuous. It is everywhere. And along with it, also conspicuous, is the profusion of eight-sided figures, octagons, within the Sino-Asiatic order. They are nowhere to be seen in Hindoo temples, nor in Boodhist temples even though Boodhism features an eightfold path – this takes the form of the eight-spoked Dharma Wheel in typical Boodhist iconography. The octagon, however – the eight-sided plain figure with or without an eight-pointed star – is conspicuously Chinese. 

The author of these pages is currently resident in the old city of George Town on the Prince of Wales Island, the only city in Malaysia that boasts a Chinese majority. A feature of the old city is the beautiful temples and clan houses, some of them very extensive and sumptuous, some very old. They are among the best Taoist and Confucian temples outside of China proper. Chinese from both Formosa and the mainland travel to George Town to visit them. It is a major temple city and a major centre of traditional Chinese religion.

An immediately obvious feature of such temples, and the attending buildings, and the Chinese domestic terrace houses too, is the proliferation of octagonal forms – tile designs, floor patterns, sacred insignia, altar iconography, and so on. The Chinese “lucky colour” is vermillion. The “lucky number”, as the Chinese will tell you, is eight. Sets of eight, preferably arranged in octagonal forms, are considered auspicious. It is by far the most common geometrical motif in traditional Chinese decoration.

Below are a few examples of octagonal forms to be seen around George Town. Some of the roads feature large octagonal designs and octagonal tile designs are everywhere to be seen. The geometrical tiles themselves were originally imported from Sheffield by the British, but the Chinese were so taken by them – such is their love of the octagonal pattern - that they adopted them as a standard feature of their homes, temples and pathways. The present author has noted the tile patterns of George Town - one of the most striking and beautiful features of the old city - in a previous post here.

 

Octagons feature as a design on several streets in George Town old city. 

Design on the wall of the Chinese clan association building in George Town

Octagonal tile patterns found throughout George Town

What, though, is the significance of the octagon, both in principle and specifically to the Chinese? It is, of course, not exclusive to the Chinese tradition; it does feature in the symbolism of other traditional orders as well, but nowhere so extensively. In the occidental order we find it the symbolic form of baptism. Several famous baptistries, such as that in Florence, are octagonal, and – a residual continuation of the same symbolism - baptistimal fonts in Catholic and some Anglican and Lutheran churches. Amongst Christians, though, it is a form more typical of the Eastern churches where it occurs naturally with a sacred architecture featuring a dome atop of rectilinear understorey. 

This is the form appropriated from the Byzantine Christians by the Mahometans when they built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem – perhaps the most impressive octagonal building in the world. It was possibly from this inspiration that Emperor Frederick – who had seen the Dome of the Rock during the Crusades - built his mysterious octagonal folly, the Castel de Monte, in southern Italy. All the same, these architectural examples are exceptions. The octagon is not as conspicuous as a symbol in the occidental world as it is in the orient. It occurs naturally in Mahometan geometrical patterns, but there it is not imbued with the same symbolic value – marked as “auspiciousness” – that we find among the Chinese. 

The Castel del Monte

Basically, the symbolism of the octagon is this: it is an intermediate form between the circle (of heaven) and the square (of earth). Its primary meaning therefore is: regeneration. It signals: the square that returns to the circle. That is, it consists of two superimposed squares which are in the process of returning into a circular form. Thus the association with baptism: the rite of regeneration. In the Chinese (which is to say Taoist) context, though – and this is quite apart from its correspondences with the eight trigrams of the I Ching and other symbolic parallels such as the eight directions – the signification of regeneration is overtly alchemical. 

As with the colour red, the meaning behind the “luck” the Chinese associate with the symbol is to be understood via the strongly alchemical nature of the Chinese order. Alchemy concerns exactly this: regeneration. The regeneration of matter into spirit (if we are to describe it dualistically). The regeneration of base metals into gold. In the octagon, the square (matter, earth) is regenerating into the circle (spirit, heaven). It is for this reason that it finds such a prominent place in the Chinese tradition – it is the pre-eminent (stable) expression of the doctrine of alchemical regeneration, which is the core theme of Chinese spirituality. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Taoist Portal Deities

The old city area of George Town, and other older areas of Pe Nang, boast some of the most beautiful and illustrious Chinese Taoist temples outside of China proper. The Chinese settled Prince of Wales Island and the straits of Malacca at an early period for purposes of trade. At first they established temples to gods sacred to seafarers, but over time they also established clan temples devoted to ancestral worship. It is now the clan temples that are most prominent. They house the gods of the various clans, memorials to ancestors, as well as acting as social organisations and meeting halls for clan members. In the XIXth century there was often fierce or even violent competition between rival clans, sometimes leading to outbreaks of killing and riots. The sagacious British rulers of the isle had to sort it out. Today, the rivalry between clans can be seen in the efforts each has made to render their respective temples bigger and better and more beautiful than others. This has made these temples especially splendid, and in recent times there has been an effort to restore them to their original state. 

Some of the Chinese temples in George Town have Boodhist features, and some - including the central Temple of the Goddess of Mercy in Pitt Street - include Hindoo deities, but most are Toaist and house Taoist gods. One of the keys to understanding Chinese religiosity is that its dominant theme is the continuity of life and death. This often leads it to be characterised as "ancestor worship". Very often, illustrious and important ancestors become worshipped as gods. This is a Taoist extension of the institution of the boddhisatva in Mahayana Boodhism. A famous physician, for example, will be said to forgo eternal felicity (nirvana) after he dies in order to continue to assist the ailing among the living, and in this way he becomes a god of healing. His image is set up in temples and prayers are made to him for intercession. Famous ancestors of particular clans are elevated to the status of deity after the same manner. Prayers concern the prosperity of the clan, wealth, good fortune and social advancement. The dead do not move on. They continue to look over and assist the living. This is one of the main themes that the Chinese take from Mahayana Boodhism. It goes neatly with their "ancestor worship". 

One of the most outstanding features of the George Town clan temples are the portal doors. In many temples these large, heavy wooden doors are painted with images of protective deities who prevent evil spirits from entering the temples. The protective deities are two generals who lived in the Tang Dynasty. They once stood as guards for the emperor. Now, in the afterlife, they have sworn to continue in this role and so they are worshipped as guardian deities; their images adorn portals and doorways and other places where it is necessary to prevent the entry of malevolent influences. 

The photographs on this present page show examples of the protective portal guardians from several George Town clan temples, as well as some images of the interior spaces of the temples themselves. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Chinese Red - Temple Vermillion

The moment you take even a step into the Sino-Asiatic world - any part of east Asia with a significant Chinese population or under Chinese influence, or else into your nearest Chinatown - you enter a world coloured with red. It is very conspicuous. The Chinese adore the colour red. It features in all of their adornments, both domestic and public. But it is not just any colour red - it is a very particular type of red. Not fire engine red. Not Santa Claus red. Not Red Cross red. Not communist red, either. No. It is Chinese lantern red. Chinese temple red. It is a particular, unmistakeable shade of red usually identified as "vermillion" or else, in the past, as "cinnabar". See the colour square above for an example. 

There is no official definition of the exact shade but in the sample given above "vermillion" has the Hex value #E34234. Any shade of red near to it will pass as "Chinese red" as we will call it here. You will find it used in a thousand different ways. Red lanterns. Red ribbons. Red signs. Red seals. The present author has recently arrived in the Chinese section of George Town on the Prince of Wales Island and this "Chinese red" is on display everywhere. He recently ate at the "Red Garden Food Paradise" which is literally "Chinese red" from top to bottom - red tables, red chairs, red writing, red uniforms on the waiting staff. Everything in this distinctive "Chinese red". 

The standard explanation for the love of this colour among the Chinese is entirely unsatisfactory. We are told, unhelpfully, that the Chinese regard it as "auspicious" and that it brings "good luck." More detailed explanations are equally uninformative. We are told that it "symbolises fire" and this "represents spring" and the "direction south" and is therefore "lucky" or "auspicious" for this reason. Certainly, the Chinese are given to preoccupations of "luck", but surely something more lies behind the ubiqitous use of red, and this particular red. How do we explain that this red - this "vermillion" - is regarded as "auspicious", and also why it is so completely and comprehensively "auspicious" that the Chinese use it so extensively in all contexts great and small? What is it about this red, this particular red, that renders it so important to the Chinese? In the pictures below we see some examples of its many uses:

Tradition lacquerware

Temple entrance with lanterns 

Row of lanterns

Traditional seal (or "chop")

Chinese wedding 

Calligraphy

* * * 

The present author offers the following explanation for this characteristically Chinese phenomenon. It is not difficult to piece together the symbolism of this colour in the Chinese tradition:

Until the development of synthetic alternatives, this particular shade of red was traditionally prepared from 'cinnabar', which is to say from Mercury Sulphide (HgS). Cinnabar is a sulphide of mercury that, when ground into a powder, yields a strong, stable permanent red that can be used in paints and lacquers. Good, stable red colourings are relatively rare in nature, so this preparation - a by-product of mining and metallurgy - was especially valued. 

It was not exclusive to the Chinese, though. Cinnabar (the name comes from Greek but is probably Persian in origin) was known and used in other cultures as well.  We see it used as a red ink in medieval European manuscripts, for example, and as a paint used in the murals of Roman Pompei: 

But the Chinese adopted it as their own. The reason for this is that the Chinese tradition - and especially Taoism - is essentially alchemical and cinnabar, as a metallic essence, is a key ingredient in Taoist alchemy. In the Occident alchemy is, and has always been, a peripheral or 'fringe' tradition. In the Chinese spiritual order it is far more central and mainstream. The colour symbolism of 'Chinese red' and its associations with 'good luck' have a basis in and are to be explained by the significance of cinnabar in Chinese alchemy. 

The primary alchemical significance of cinnabar is this: during the mining of gold the miners might encounter 'veins' of red cinnabar (Mercury sulphide)in the bedrock. Gold and cinnabar are often found together. This is because both gold and mercury are heavy metals and such metals tend to be found in the same geological strata. (For the same reason, arsenic and other heavy metals are often found with gold.) 

Thus cinnabar is associated with gold and in the alchemical mythology of gold mining is often called 'Dragon's blood'. Dragons are believed to store and protect gold in their 'lairs' in the womb of the earth. When miners encounter 'veins' of blood-red pigments running through rocks near and around gold deposits they imagine them to be veins of Dragon's blood. This idea is suggested by the word 'vermillion' too, since it comes from the same root as the word 'worm', and a dragon is a 'worm' in many languages. 'Vermillion' means 'the colour of the dragon/worm'. 

The basic idea here is simple and straightforward. Vermillion - dragon's blood - is "lucky" because it signifies the proximity of gold. When a miner encounters cinnabar (dragon's blood) he is in luck, because he knows there is likely to be gold nearby. When he strikes dragon's blood he has struck gold. 

By extension, this colour is associated with gold and with the auric properties of gold in a general sense. Gold here carries its alchemical significance. It is not merely a precious metal valued in terms of wealth; it also signifies spiritual perfection. Accordingly, the Chinese surround themselves with things the colour of 'dragon's blood' because it points to the perfections of gold. Indeed, as we see in the case of the calligraphy illustrated above, we often find the colour gold with 'Chinese red'. Cinnabar/vermillion/dragon's blood goes with gold in Chinese colour symbolism. You can walk into any Chinese temple and see instances of this. 

By understanding these alchemical associations, and by appreciating the inherently alchemical character of the Chinese tradition, we are in a position to appreciate why this particular colour red is so highly regarded by the Chinese. To a large extent, of course, the traditional connections may be forgotten, and so people will merely regard 'Chinese red' as "lucky" in a superstitious way, but the reasons behind the superstition can still be discerned and understood. In effect, the colour signifies gold, as well as all the things that gold itself signifies, especially the spiritual perfection of the 'Golden Race' and such other parallels. It is remarkable that this metallurgic symbolism has persisted and become so pervasive in the Chinese order. Understanding the symbolism of 'Chinese red' is one of the keys to the entire Chinese tradition. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black