Building and maintaining a family tomb is considered to be crucial part of ancestor worship for Vietnamese people but some families take it too far.

This is where Phuc’s paternal family is buried and today he will perform a ceremony at his grandfather’s tomb. After that, grass around the tomb will be cut and cleared. Later on builders will then renovate the tomb. “The tomb needs to be rebuilt,” says Phuc. “I want my father to feel happier in the afterlife.”

He has brought Duc along as he wants his son to always remember the family’s ancestors, which is so vital to Vietnamese people’s spiritual and religious beliefs. Following your parents on such a trip is a rite of passage for all Vietnamese.

I remember when I was small I would also visit my great grandfather’s tomb in the country as Tet was approaching. In the piercing cold, each person would use a hoe, shovel or a sickle to clear up the overgrowing grass and surrounding bushes around the tomb. Afterwards my grandmother would tell me this way our ancestors would have more beautiful house to welcome in the New Year.

As a child I felt happy visiting tombs with my parents though I did not understand exactly why we were doing it. Now watching Duc by his grandfather’s tomb, I understand that parents must educate their children to respect their ancestors by visiting the tombs. By neglecting your ancestors in the afterlife, you will be cast adrift in this world.

I once read a US soldier’s recollection of an encounter with a simple villager living in Central Vietnam during the war with the US. The farmer’s house was slap bang in the middle of a perilous battle zone that was been heavily pounded with bombs. The soldier’s patrol forced the farmer and his wife to leave their home and delivered them to a safety zone near a US military base. But the soldier wrote that the next day the farmer went straight back to his home as he would rather risk death then abandon the spirits of his ancestors.

Protecting the family’s honour

Vietnamese people also believe the tomb must be protected. Nguyen Van Them, an 80 year old from Vinh Yen province, says that he often visits his family’s tombs to make sure none of the tombs have been violated. “It is believed that when a tomb of your family is violated, your family will get bad luck,” he says.

When I meet Pham Van Huy he is fixing up a tomb in another cemetery near West Lake. His wife is busy rooting up grass from a row of tombs. Nearby a small group of people are redecorating tombs with a lick of paint. “We are all from Nam Dinh province,” says Huy. “We need to make some extra money for Tet.” While people believe their happiness and wealth depends on how well they take care of their ancestors’ tombs, nobody said who had to take care of the tomb.

Grave business

Headstone carving is a profitable business during the ninth and third lunar months when tombs are often repaired or renovated. On Hang Mam street in Hanoi, Nguyen Vu Cong shows me around the workshop where four generations of his family have carved headstones. “This headstone is made with granite from Ninh Binh province, which will last for hundreds of years,” says Cong.

He hands me a book with hundreds of design samples. The most commonly chosen motifs are dragons and phoenixes, which Cong says symbolises nobility.

“In the past, headstones were mostly made out of cement. Only rich families made rock headstones, which were very expensive,” says Cong.

With rising living standards and levels of income, people have been spending more and more money in the last decade on building large tombs with elaborate designs.

One modern trend has been placing an image of deceased on the headstone. Scripts on the headstone are frequently embossed. A family might spend millions of dong on headstone. “It can take up to 3-4 hours to complete the carving of a product,” says Cong.

One-upmanship

When I meet Nguyen Van Them again, he says that his family has decided to rebuild 10 tombs so as to “make them larger than the neighbouring tombs”.

“If they are not big and beautiful, people will say we are undutiful to our ancestors,” says Them. His family is not rich. Its income comes from maize and rice plantation. However, he says 30 members of his family have chipped in VND1.7 million ($100) each to rebuild the tombs.

“There are five men in my family so we have to contribute VND8.5 million,” says Them. “Our tombs have to be far bigger and more beautiful than the tombs of other families.” Around the cemetery a number of tombs might be described as small mausoleums. Recently in Thua Thien Hue city a family wanted to build a mausoleum to the tune of VND200 million to outdo a neighbouring family’s tomb. But with work only half finished the family fell out over contributing more money. Most of them were farmers.

Jeered by villagers, the head of the family pleaded with his relatives to mortgage their land’s title-deeds at a bank to help finance the rest of the building. In the end he had to sell his own land to get the work completed, which is surely too much of a sacrifice on his ancestor’s behalf.

Although it is our duty to look after our ancestors, no doubt they would would also wish we took care of ourselves.

(Source: Timeout)