Wednesday was Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, when people pay homage to their deceased family members.

The ideal weather for this day, as sanctified in an ancient poem, is a drizzle, which would on one hand compliment the solemnity of the occasion and on the other hand eliminate fire hazards.

The latest addition to this custom is a paid service that lets others, presumably professionals, take care of all the incense burning and tomb sweeping for you.

The fee is not unreasonable ---- about 200-300 yuan (US$25-38) ---- and as seen on TV news, a group of four people, properly dressed in dark suits, pray in front of a designated tombstone, and in case you fear a scam, videotape the whole process and e-mail it to the client.

Everything seems to be prim and proper, except that there is no sense in the whole thing.

Sending a stranger to meditate at a tombstone is fundamentally different from sending a nurse to take care of an ailing parent.

In the first case, lighting up candles and placing flowers are outward manifestations of one's remembrance of a loved one who is no longer with them. The gestures are all symbolic.

If one is unable to make the trip to the site, it doesn't mean one misses his or her dear departed any less.

Asking a relative or a close friend to go in your stead makes sense, but asking a total stranger is a little preposterous.

It's somewhat like attending a church service: If you're religious, you may go or not go, depending on your time schedule and a thousand other things that prompt or prevent you from attending.

But it would be hypocritical to hire someone to go in your name, wouldn't it? It's your soul that's at stake, after all.

The incident reported in the news happened in Shanghai, like all new and newsworthy business models, is quickly being copied in other cities.

Is it a sign of commercialization running amok?

We are so busy making money that we'll hire professionals to do the memorial ritual for us. What's next? Shall we hire help to go on a date for us? They'll surely be more eloquent and charming than we are because they'll be selected from a large pool of talented and trained individuals.

Others might argue that some people live far away from where their ancestors are buried, and feel the deceased in the other world would know and be sad if nobody showed up at their tombstones.

Well, if their spirits were alive, how would they feel when they see total strangers come for visit? It wouldn't be better than when we open our doors and find salespeople.

That reminds me of the story of college students "renting" girlfriends on their winter trips home.

Equally ludicrous at first glance, this practice smells fishy and may involve intentions far more down-to-earth than something as spiritual as communicating one's sense of love and loss.

Vanity, an urge to please the parents, and convenience to secure a temporary sex partner are all possible factors.

It is a good thing that all kinds of services are created to cater to the needs of a rapidly evolving society.

This way, jobs multiply and wealth spreads. The benefits of a free market trickle, albeit slowly, to all corners of the society.

However, there are things so personal that no assistant or machine, no matter how scientifically trained or programmed, can substitute. "Tomb sweeping," the Chinese term for the ceremony, is one.

That said, I have to admit that part of the service can indeed be outsourced - the physical part, the part about removing weeds and cleaning up the tomb.

But shouldn't that have been the job of the cemetery?

When most people talk about "sweeping their ancestral tombs," it is metaphorical as well as literal.

Money can buy flowers, candles and incense, but money cannot buy the remembrance one has for the lamented.

E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/08/2006 page4)