New Year Fires

For the past couple weeks, I've seen a lot of ashes on the sidewalks. As well as nicely built fires with people feeding paper circles into them. Seeing how this is Chinese New Year, I figured it was some sort of tradition that seemed interesting, so I took a picture of it. But because of what I learned about it, I won't be posting it any time soon.

Turns out those remains of a fire I keep seeing pop up everywhere are fires to respect the dead. People burn things like paper money or paper cut-outs of different things so that the ancestors can have everything they need in the after-life. Because of that, I'll never post the picture.

The reason? Taking a picture at funerals, funeral services, or of anyone honoring the dead, at least to me, is no different than taking a picture of the most recent turd you've just expelled and passing it around to your friends at a child's funeral. You just don't do it.

The only thing I get confused on with these fire piles is where to walk. The ashes aren't cleaned up right after the fire, so how far away from them must I be to show the proper respect? I have no idea. I simply hope where I'm at isn't disrespectful to someone's way of honoring the dead.

Tianjin picture of the day!

Thankfully, horribly polluted days like the one this picture came from are rare in Tianjin. Today has been quite clear. :)