他们一直都在陪伴着家人Ancestors have a seat at the table in Ghost Festival

The first time I ever experienced the Ghost Festival with my husband’s family in their rural Zhejiang village, it was the table that caught my attention.

这是我第一次同丈夫一家人在浙江农村过“鬼”节，那里的餐桌引起了我的注意。

Two candles up front illuminated a fine spread of homemade delicacies from my mother-in-law’s kitchen, from spicy stewed fish to red-braised pork. The food was surrounded by six white porcelain rice bowls with chopsticks and six tiny matching cups filled generously with the local rice wine.

两根蜡烛立在桌前，桌上有着摆放讲究、婆婆精心烹制的佳肴，如辣椒炖鱼、红烧肉。食物四周摆放着六个白瓷碗筷，六对儿小巧的酒杯盛着当地的米酒。

Even though the wooden benches surrounding the table were ready to welcome people for a real feast that evening, they remained empty. After all, the real guests -- the family’s ancestors -- had probably already arrived, in ghostly form. These ancestors had always presided over the entrance hall to the home through their sepia-toned photos hung high on the wall. But the table arranged below them seemed to strengthen their presence in the room.

餐桌边的木制长椅是为迎接客人享用丰盛晚餐而准备的，但迟迟没人入座。其实，真正的客人——已故祖先，他们的魂魄早已入席了。在高挂墙上的棕褐色照片里的祖先一直掌管这一家，照片下方的桌子似乎加深了他们的存在感。

And just as family members often do at special occasions and holidays in China, we were presenting the ancestors with money that evening. Granted, the neat, silvery piles of joss paper folded into boat-shapedyuanbao, the imperial ingots once used as currency in ancient China, looked nothing like the crisp yuan we would normally stuff into festive red envelopes. And unlike real banknotes, these paperyuanbao needed fire to reach the hands of their recipients. Nevertheless, the idea behind it all -- that a little money could show you cared -- remained the same.

正如在中国的许多特殊场合和假期一样，我们一家人当晚为祖先烧了纸钱。几叠整齐摆放、银色的纸钱折成船形的元宝状，元宝是古代中国的一种货币，与在节日里放入红包里的纸币大为不同。不同于纸币的是，纸钱用火烧了之后，才能到达收件人手中。尽管如此，不管是送红包还是烧纸钱，其背后的寓意依然是不变的，表达了你对他人的关心。

As I watched my father-in-law bow before the ancestors’ table with sticks of incense in his hands, I was struck by how the entire scene -- from the steaming dishes on the table to the paper money on the floor -- was so full of life. In that moment, it was possible even for me, a woman who usually didn’t believe in ghosts, to imagine the ancestors were all seated before us.

我看到我的公公拿着手中的香火在祖先的桌子前鞠躬，当时场面十分动容，从桌上的热气腾腾的菜肴到地上的纸币，一切都充满了生命的气息。在那一刻，甚至对我这样一个不相信鬼魂的人来说，都开始想象祖先们坐在我们面前的场景。

But for my husband and his family, it wasn’t imagination at all. The ancestors were still a part of their world, as they had always been. Death had merely delivered them to another realm, where their presence carried on in each and every day, just like their photos on the wall. They brought strength to the family and blessed everyone. They could even “visit” the family, which is said to happen during the Ghost Festival.

但对我丈夫和他的家人来说，这根本不是想象中的场景。祖先仍然是他们世界中的一部分，如同祖先依然在世的时候一样。死亡只是将他们带到了另一个地方，他们就像墙上的照片一样无所不在，生生不息。他们为家庭带来了力量，并寄予每一个人祝福。据说在鬼节的期间，他们甚至能“回到”这个家庭。 

Experiencing the Ghost Festival with the family, along with their ideas of how the deceased fit into our world, brought great consolation to me. I still occasionally mourned the loss of my mother, who had passed away from cancer when I was in high school. But the idea that she still existed in this world, even if I couldn’t see her here -- that I too could invite her to my own table to sit down for a dinner feast -- was more reassuring than much of the advice I had received for my grieving soul.

与家人一起体验鬼节、以及他们对于死者共存的想法给我带来了极大的宽慰。有时，一想到在我高中时因癌症去世的母亲，我依旧悲痛不已。但转念想到即使我看不到她，但是她仍然存在于这个世界上，我甚至可以邀请她到餐桌旁坐下来享用一顿晚餐，这种念头远比其他建议要更能抚慰我这悲怆的灵魂。

So one day, I unpacked my own box of memories of my mother -- which included a painting of her face, so reminiscent of the sepia-toned photos that hung on the walls of my husband’s family home -- and placed them reverently in a prime corner of our home. Though I joked with my husband that she was “finally home,” in fact, she had always been there -- just like his ancestors.

有一天，我打开了关于母亲记忆的匣子，其中有一张她的照片，就像挂在我丈夫家中墙上的棕褐色照片一样，我虔诚地把它们放在家中显眼的角落里。虽然我对我的丈夫开玩笑说她“终于回家了”，但是实际上她一直都在那里，就像我丈夫的祖先一样。