The Chinese do no cooking and eat no hot food on the day preceding Ching Ming, acting in deference to a long-gone official who was accidentally burned to death by his dunder-headed confreres. Women and children wear a sprig of willow on the day itself to safeguard themselves against the posthumous horror of returning to this life in the form of dogs. The family visits its ancestral graves, makes any needed repairs and sets out a feast for the dead. Paper replicas of money and clothing are burned to let the deceased know that their interests are being looked after, and a little diversionary fire is lighted nearby to distract evil spirits and keep them from butting into the main sacrifice. Having made its gesture of feeding the dead, the family then falls to and eats the feast itself. Because land is scarce in the colony, graves are rented only for a limited period. Six or seven years after a member of the family has died, his survivors obtain an exhumation permit and visit the grave on Ching Ming to dig up his coffin. The bones are removed from the coffin, carefully sorted and cleaned with sandpaper, and packed into an earthenware urn with the skull on top. The undertaker, accompanied by members of the family, then removes the urn to a hillside site in the New Territories, selecting a location with a favorable fung shui, where the deceased presumably will be able to enjoy a pleasant view. Chinese coffins are a massive, rough-hewn product, resembling a four-leaf clover in outline; if they are still in sound condition after their first tenant is evicted, they may be resold at a discount for rehabilitation and put to use again. Many Occidentals would pale at the thought of sandpapering and reassembling the last of Aunt Matilda, but the Chinese entertain no such qualms. They take a calm and realistic view of death, handling the bones of the dead with complete respect, but without morbidity or gloom. Ching Ming is a time of remembrance rather than lamentation. T’ien Hou, the Taoist Queen of Heaven, celebrates her birthday on the 23d day of the Third Moon. For the boat people, it is the most important festival of the year; T’ien Hou is their chief patron, keeping her benign eye on such matters as a good catch and fair weather. Her shrines are in the cabin of every junk, and her 24 temples stand in every village that overlooks the sea. In her earthly days, the story goes, she was a fisherman’s daughter. Once she fell into a trance while her parents were far out at sea. Dreaming that a storm was about to drown them, she roused herself and pointed directly at their boat. It was the only one in the fleet to return safely.