hairman Mao's regime not only changed the way we lived: it also changed the way we died. Even the treatment of the dead changed under Mao's rule. Everything changed under Mao.

One day when I was still about eight, I wanted to impress my niang by cooking lunch for the family myself, when she was late coming back from working in the fields. So I placed some of the leftover food on a bamboo steamer and tried to be creative by adding a couple of my niang's precious eggs in a seafood sauce. The fire was hard to make that day, and the room soon filled with smoke. To see if the food was properly cooked, I lifted the big, heavy wok cover. I was so short that I had to stand on a little stool, and the wok cover was engulfed in steam. As I lifted the cover the stool fell from under my feet. Steam from the wok gushed out at my face. I crashed forward onto the scalding edge of the wok, burning my skin, and my niang's six precious newly purchased plates were knocked to the floor, smashed.

I was terrified! I knew it had taken my parents all year to save enough money to buy those plates. And now, there they were, in a thousand pieces on the floor at my feet.

I ran to Na-na's house next door. If we were ever in trouble, we'd go to Na-na's. My parents would never yell at us in front of her. Was I ever in trouble now!

"What's wrong?" she asked when she saw my frightened face.

"I've broken Niang's new plates!" I sobbed.

"How many did you break?" she asked.

"Six."

"How many?!" she shouted. I wasn't sure if she hadn't quite heard me or if she couldn't believe I had broken all six. My niang had proudly shown the plates to Na-na only the day before.

I repeated the number louder, and stuck out my thumb and my little finger on my right hand to indicate the number six.

"Oh! Wo de tian na!" My god! she exclaimed, with an expression of disbelief. "How did you manage to break that many?"

I quickly told her what had happened. Niang would be so upset when she found out.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it. You can have lunch with me." Na-na looked at me reassuringly. "You broke those plates by trying to help your niang. You're a good boy. You shouldn't be punished for this." Then she murmured to herself, "What a world we're living in now. A mother of seven has to work in the fields! I've never heard of such a thing!"

She had already cooked her lunch and was placing some food on her wooden tray as she spoke. When I saw the amount of food on the tray, I knew she only had enough for herself.

"You go ahead and finish the food," she said. "I'll wait to eat with your niang later."

I hesitated. Na-na's food was provided by my parents and my uncles and aunties. Her food was always better than ours.

"Your niang will be home any minute if you don't hurry. I wouldn't be around when she gets back if I were you!" she said.

I gobbled up her delicious bread roll quickly and ran out. When I returned home late that afternoon I found my niang very upset. I heard her sigh to my dia, "Our niang was trying to help cook our lunch. She accidentally slipped off the stool and broke all our six new plates! She is getting on in age."

"Is she all right?" Dia asked, concerned.

"Yes, miraculously she didn't hurt herself at all," my niang replied.

I was eternally thankful to my na-na for saving my skin. I quietly slipped into her house that evening and whispered in her ear, "Thank you, Na-na!"

"What?!" she shouted.

I was so afraid others might find out the truth if I said it any louder, so I just gave her a big kiss on her bony cheek and went back home.

My na-na's health became progressively worse for the next half year. My fourth brother Cunsang, who always had a special bond with her, began to sleep in the same bed to watch over her. But still she worsened—she couldn't walk, she became unable to eat, lost her bowel control and gradually slipped away from us. She died about a year after I broke the plates.

As was the local custom, her body was laid in a coffin, in her living room, for three days. The smell of incense filled our houses.

"Why does Na-na's body have to stay here for three days?" I asked my third brother Cunmao.

"In case she comes alive again."

"How can a dead person come back to life?"

He told me a story then, which he'd heard from a friend: "A couple were looked after in their old age by their only son and daughter-in-law," he began. "They were not well cared for. Most of the time they were given leftovers to eat."

"Shouldn't they have been kind to their mother and father?" I interrupted.

"Not all people are kind to their elderly as we are in our family," he continued. "One day, a distant relative of the old couple took pity on them and quietly slipped two hard-boiled eggs into their hands. They were so excited that they quickly peeled the shells off and just as they were going to eat them they heard their daughter-in-law coming towards their room. The wife told her husband to hurry up and eat his egg. Fearing their daughter- inlaw would accuse them of stealing the eggs, the old man quickly put the egg in his mouth and swallowed it whole."

"Why didn't he chew it?" I asked Cunmao.

"He didn't have any teeth left," he replied. He knew by that stage I was gripped by his story. "Let's stop here," he said. "It may be too scary for you."

"Please, please! I promise I won't get scared!" I begged.

"Only if you promise me that you won't tell our parents I've told you this story if you can't sleep at night because of it!" he said.

"I promise, I promise with all my heart!" I pounded my fist on my chest.

"You swear?" he asked.

I spat on the ground and stamped on it with my foot.

"All right," he continued. "The old man choked on the egg and instantly stopped breathing."

"Was he dead?" I gasped.

"Of course he was dead!" Cunmao replied. "So they bought him a cheap coffin and had a cheap burial. In the meantime, the old lady didn't want to remain in this world without her husband and begged her son to bury her as well."

"Did they bury her?" I asked.

"No! It's illegal to bury a live person," he replied.

I could tell the best part of the story was still to come.

"The old lady's only treasure was a pearl necklace her husband had given her and she wrapped it around his neck. She begged his soul to find a peaceful resting place and then come back to get her. The old man's son didn't wait for the three-day period. He buried his father on the first night after his death. The word spread wide about the buried treasure around the old man's neck. At midnight, a robber dug up the grave and opened the coffin. He could see the pearls reflected in the moonlight. The robber made sure the old man was truly dead before he took the necklace by punching hard on the old man's chest three times. Just as he reached for the necklace…" Cunmao stopped. "Guess what happened?"

"The old man's son showed up?" I guessed.

"Ha-ha!" Cunmao laughed heartily. "Are you sure you won't be scared?"

"I already promised you, hurry up!" I urged him.

"The old man suddenly opened his eyes wide and said in a loud voice, `What do you think you're doing, young man?` The robber, as if he had seen a ghost, jumped out of the grave and bolted away witless."

I sat there petrified to the spot. This was the last outcome I'd expected. Cunmao opened his eyes big and wide, just like the old man's.

"Why did he become alive again?" I asked, terrified, gasping for air.

"I knew you wouldn't get it!" Cunmao scoffed. "The egg got stuck in the old man's throat and when the robber punched him, the egg was knocked loose so he got his breath back. And that's why we have to leave Na-na's body here for three days in case she comes alive again too."

"Then why didn't anyone punch our na-na three times?"

"Do you think our elders would do it in front of us? Okay, go and play now."

I still had a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but I could see Cunmao had had enough of me. When I asked my second brother Cunyuan about the reason for our na-na's three-day staying, he told me it was just to allow relatives who lived far away to see her before she was buried. But I thought Cunmao's story was much more satisfying.

I was stricken with grief at Na-na's death. At the beginning I didn't mind seeing her pale, motionless face in the coffin, but as time wore on, her face turned strange and very scary. I had nightmares for several nights.

Na-na didn't want to be buried near my grandfather because his first wife was also buried there and she didn't want any fights. She said the first wife always had priority. But she did say to my parents, a few days before her death, "If there is one thing I want you to do for me when I'm dead, it is to bury me properly." She firmly believed that her spirit would live on in a different world. So my dia and uncles asked a good carpenter to make a special coffin, carved with birds, flowers, trees and water. Our youngest aunt's husband painted it, the one who was the furniture painter and had lots of photographs.

It wasn't easy to obtain permission for Na-na's traditional burial however, since this was now considered an old, unhealthy tradition. The government had just started forcing people to cremate the dead. Our elders had to do a lot of lobbying, at different levels of the commune leadership, but none of the leaders wanted to take responsibility. Nobody officially gave us permission to bury our na-na. But nobody said we couldn't either, so she was buried as she had wished. "This shows how important it is to be honest and kind," my dia said to us. "If it wasn't for the Li family's reputation, we couldn't do this." Na-na's burial was to be the last one allowed in our village.

The village leaders let us select the edge of a ditch for Na-na's burial site. It was a water escape channel from the fields. Any place with water was a lucky place. It lay north of our house, halfway up the Northern Hill.

Before she died, Na-na had personally chosen her funeral clothes, shoes and other essential burial items. She'd made her own clothes and shoes so she'd feel comfortable in the other world. After she died, she was washed with a warm cloth to represent "cleansing her of the filth of this world" so she'd have a clean start in the new world. Na-na's own daughters then dressed her in her burial clothes, a dark greenish-blue cotton jacket, and black shoes with flowers stitched on the soles. The man with the best writing in the village was fetched to write Na-na's name on a large piece of white paper, the same shape as the stone nameplate on the graves. Once a person died, his or her spirit would linger, looking for the place where they belonged. This temporary nameplate would show her that this was her place. If we didn't have Na-na's nameplate put up quickly, her soul might wander away and become lost for ever. The man with the good writing also wrote Nana's name and her date of birth and death on a piece of white silk, large enough to drape over the coffin. At least one person would stay by the coffin at all times during those three days, to "keep the beloved company". Any person related to Na-na or our family had to cry loudly as soon as they walked into the room, regardless of their age. The person who was "keeping the beloved company" had to cry as well and as they cried they would call out the visitor's name so Na-na would know who was paying her their respects.

On the first night after Na-na's death, we used sorghum stems and blue rice paper to make some figures of a cow and a horse, and several child-size figures. A painter would then paint some faces onto these, not human faces, but half-human faces. The models represented food and servants for Na-na to use in her new world. Na-na was so poor in our world, I thought to myself, and yet she is meant to die so rich. In reality, when she died, her only possession was a chest of drawers.

As soon as the sun went down on the first day after her death, the entire family formed a procession. Everyone cried loudly all the way to a temporary miniature temple, about ten minutes away from our house. The Red Guards had destroyed all the real temples, so my dia and uncles had to make this one themselves. It was only about a yard or so high—it looked like a toy temple to me, but here the local god would determine if our na-na was worthy of a happy life. If there were a god and he were fair, he would definitely look after my na-na. She was the best na-na in the world. I couldn't imagine anyone kinder.

This procession was repeated again on the second night after sunset, and very early on the third day, the funeral day, just before sunrise. Skilled diggers then went to the burial site to prepare for the coffin.

The funeral itself was expensive. Some families would spend up to a third of their savings on it. Our family hired many people, even though it cost us dearly: coffin carriers, dancers on stilts, musicians, blanket-and-quilt-carriers, even people to carry mirrors, combs, cups, food, drinks and, most importantly, a lot of fake paper money.

On the day of the funeral, the procession began from Na-na's house, with my eldest uncle carrying a big clay pot on his head. At one point he had to drop the pot on the ground. The pot broke into pieces, the signal for everyone to begin crying, one of the only occasions when crying in public was acceptable. Only men were permitted to go to the burial site. The women were left to cry in the house and cook the feast.

The Li funeral entourage was very impressive. Many distant relatives appeared, some we didn't even know existed! The procession moved very slowly behind the coffin, all the way to the gravesite. It seemed to take for ever. I had never heard or seen my dia cry before, and haven't since, but there was more crying to come at the gravesite. We had to kneel in front of Nana's coffin and kowtow three times before she was lowered into her grave. I remember seeing the little window-like holes in the grave to hold her mirror, her cups and other possessions.

The closing of the grave was the worst moment though. My heart throbbed. I tried so hard to drive away that last frightening image of her dead face lying in the coffin. My fourth brother was the worst affected. Cunsang cried for days. He slept on Na-na's old bed for many months afterwards.

We had to wear something white for a whole year after Na-na's death. Our parents wore white shirts, but for us children the only things our niang could afford were white strips of cloth, which were sewn onto our shoes. We often went to visit Na-na's graveyard with our dia and fourth uncle, so she wouldn't be lonely in her new world. Each time, we brought her lots of symbolic money, gold and food. I loved going back to her grave to wish her a happy life, but it always saddened me too.

Within a month of Na-na's death my niang suddenly fell ill with vomiting and a high fever. Despite seeing a few local healers, her sickness persisted and on the second night she had a strange dream: Na-na accused her and my dia of not looking after her. She complained that her house was shabby and that the roof leaked. My niang tried to reason with her. "We looked after you to our best ability while you were alive and gave you a lot of money for your new world. What else can we do?"

"Who told you I'm dead?" my na-na snapped, and turned her back on my niang.

The next morning my niang told one of her sewing friends about her strange dream. "Maybe she needs help," her friend whispered in her ear. "Why don't you do a test to see if I am right?"

"I'll do a test, but why do you have to whisper?"

"There are too many loose spirits! If they overhear our conversation they might play tricks on you!"

After her friend left, my niang took out a pair of chopsticks and a raw egg and placed the chopsticks pointing north on her kang. She lit two sticks of incense, closed her eyes and called out, "Niang, mother of Li Tingfang, if it was you who showed your spirit last night and if you are in need, please show your spirit again now." Then she placed the egg between the chopsticks with the pointed end down. The superstition held that if it was Na- na's spirit calling for help, the egg should stand up on the pointed end all by itself.

My niang opened her eyes and was stunned. The egg was still standing up! Even for a deeply superstitious person like my niang, it seemed a little scary.

For a few moments she didn't know what to do, until the egg fell and started to roll towards her. She grabbed it in her hand, as though it were Na-na's spirit, and immediately kowtowed three times in the direction of Na-na's burial place. "Niang! We will come to see you soon and bring you food and money! Please forgive us for our sins!" she murmured.

When my second brother arrived home from school that day she asked him to take two of his younger brothers to check on Na-na's grave straightaway. Three of us raced each other to the burial site and found a large round hole there, dug by an animal. We were not aware of our niang's dream then, so we simply filled the hole with the loose dirt and told Niang what we'd found. As soon as our dia came home from work, she said to him urgently, "Go to our niang's grave with some food and money, and make sure the hole is properly secured and patched up."

My dia was about to ask what this was all about, but my niang stopped him. "Just go now and I will explain later!"

At first my dia was reluctant to go because all of us were waiting for dinner, but after he saw how serious and determined she was, he went back to the grave, carrying a lantern, a shovel, a bottle of water and some incense and paper money.

Later that night our niang finally told us of her dream and her experiment with the egg. All of us children laughed and thought she was just being superstitious, but our dia was more thoughtful. "One cannot fully believe it and yet one shouldn't disbelieve it." That's what Confucius would have said, I thought. But even so, our niang's fever receded the very next day.

My parents discussed this incident often. So did our niang's group of friends, whose superstitious beliefs gave them hope beyond the harsh reality of daily life.

But one question which bothered my parents for many days after this incident was why Na-na didn't send her message about her leaking grave to my dia instead. Perhaps, my parents considered, Na-na wouldn't have thought he would take this dream too seriously, or perhaps she thought he would have been too tired to even dream. But most importantly, they believed that Na-na wouldn't have had the heart to strike down the main breadwinner of our family with sickness, her youngest and most favourite son.

The death of Na-na was the first time in my life that I had lost someone I loved dearly. Every time I entered or passed her house, tears would stream down my face. I kept hearing her sweet voice. I dreamed about her often. I missed her for many, many years.