Salem’s Chinese community remembers ancestors during annual Qingming Festival 

A small group of Salem’s Chinese community gathered at Salem Pioneer Cemetery on Saturday for a moment of peaceful remembrance and reflection as they honored their loved ones and ancestors as part of the town’s annual Qingming Festival.

The Qingming festival was brought to Salem by the city’s original Chinese community in the 1800s. Each year ancestors were remembered and the rebirth of spring celebrated. 

Those first Chinese people in Salem gathered near a concrete shrine on the north end of Salem Pioneer Cemetery where offerings were placed as part of a ceremony that is celebrated each year in China and in Chinese communities around the world. 

The shrine, and Salem’s Qingming customs, were recently revitalized, and for the past seven years, Salem’s Chinese community has returned to the cemetery to remember those who have died.  

This year was the seventh annual Qingming Festival, or as it is known in English, Tomb-Sweeping Day. 

Prior to the ceremony Salem Mayor Julie Hoy spoke to the group and proclaimed April 5 as Qingming Day. Hoy’s speech was translated into Mandarin Chinese by Barry Bai, a retired state entomologist and member of the Chinese community. 

After her speech, Hoy used a special broom and silently swept the concrete slab in preparation for the ceremony which included leaving food and burning incense as an offering to loved ones and ancestors. 

The main speaker was Russell Low, the grandson of Low Sun Fook, known to his Salem contemporaries as Hop Lee. He was a laundry owner, hop farmer and fixture of the Salem community before his death in 1925.

Low read from his book, “A Willow Tree Becomes a Forest,” which tells the story of Hop Lee and his family. One of Lee’s 10 children are buried at Salem Pioneer Cemetery and so Low, who grew up in California, is a link to Salem’s Chinese past. 

“This ceremony was important, but my contribution is to make sure people realize that these were real people. Real lives, real families, real tragedies, and successes,” Low told Salem Reporter following the ceremony. “I think it is important to know we are not just bowing to an altar, but really remember people who had real lives, real families, and things that happened to them.” 

Low said as a fourth-generation Chinese American growing up in California he was disconnected from his family’s roots. Later in life, when his son was born, he decided he wanted his son to know his family heritage. Low’s pursuit reopened an entire chapter of Salem’s history.

Salem’s city archaeologist Kimberli Fitzgerald told Salem Reporter that in 2016 the city’s landmarks commission wanted to look deeper into Salem’s Chinese history, when researchers came across a newspaper article that said there was a Chinese altar in the cemetery. After a bit of archeological work, the altar was found, Fitzgerald said. 

“This is the original which we think was built in the 1870s by the Chinese community,” Fitzgerald said. “What is interesting about it, if you notice, they used feng shui to place it, so it is at an angle where the rest of the cemetery is on a grid, and it’s facing the river. And if you look closely there is a marble tablet with some Chinese characters on it.” 

On the marble tablet, it is written, “To the Tomb of an Unknown Friend,” according to the city’s website. 

During the ceremony, a group of students from Willamette University performed Chinese poetry and played music to set the tone for the event. 

Edhel Brual, a Willamette student studying Chinese, played a bamboo flute which he created himself. Brual’s flute played soft and airy as the group listened together in silence.  

“We specifically used this flute because it fits really well with the whole emotional atmosphere of the event,” Brual said. 

As part of the ceremony, the group gathered in a line and one by one placed their offerings of incense on the altar. 

Afterwards, Low said he liked to imagine his grandfather and his family coming to the cemetery each year in the exact place where the group gathered Saturday. 

“Just picture this family here doing what we did today in one form or another,” he said. 

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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