I am never going to finish writing this fic in time AHHHH.

Anyway, taking a break—so I'll catch up with LJ posting. Rah? I've decided not to write about Japan and Suzhou, so that saves you all some reading.

/>This past week my mother went to Taipei to take (dubious) care of her sister, who's undergoing chemo. On Friday we took the High Speed Rail back to Taichung. At the train station I saw someone with a huge (at least A3 size) Hunter×Hunter Animax paper tote bag, with another folded up bag inside ♥

Friday was the 15th day of the 7th month on the Chinese lunar calendar—i.e., the 7th full moon of the year. The 7th month is also the month of ghosts, when ghosts are most active. Thus, on the 15th day of the 7th month is Zhongyuan Jie, the day when people make a grand offering to their ancestors for the spirits' goodwill. Houses, shops, even department stores participate. (My Taoist paternal family does.) By the front door, there is a table upon which are mountains of food and sticks of burning incense. (Large businesses sometimes have a row of tables a block long shadowed by tents.) There are large bonfires of joss paper money; the belief is that ghosts receive these burned sacrifices in their afterlives. A fine ash of this paper covers the ground, fills the air. After the ghosts have partaken of the food offering, the living get to eat it.

Anyway, since Friday happened to be a weekend and a major Chinese festival, it was travel pandemonium. At the High Speed Rail station, there were staff with loudspeakers telling us to line up in three lines (for compactness), forcing us to line up downstairs instead of on the platform (so that the platform wouldn't become a crowd of anarchy), and telling us which train was departing when, on what platform and going where. I felt sorry for the tourists who had no idea what was going on. People with reserved seats got to sit and lounge until their train left. The rest of us had to rush on board to grab a seat.