Ancestor Altars — The Unbroken Chain

In Chinese tradition, the dead are not gone. They require food offerings, incense, paper money burned so it reaches them in the other world, and the maintenance of their spirit tablets on the family altar. In return, the ancestors watch over the family, bring good fortune, and maintain the connection between the living and the dead that is the foundation of Chinese social life. The family is not just the people alive right now — it is everyone who has ever carried that surname, and everyone who will carry it in the future. The altar is where all of them meet.

These signs carry the ancestral altar, the spirit tablet, the incense burner, and the red thread that ties every generation to the one before it.