Urban funerary professionals often told families how to counter the ghostly energy, considered ‘yin’ in the yin/yang dichotomy, that permeates places like funeral homes and cemeteries. This yin energy can be countered with yang activities, including drinking warm, sugary liquids, going to places that brim with people, or performing a fire-stepping ritual. In Shanghai and other cities, places for stepping over fire are built into the exits of funeral homes.
After observing a funeral in Nanjing, I watched a funeral professional light a small grass fire on a metal platform they had set up in the parking lot. The mourners all stepped over the fire before leaving to absorb yang energy and counter the yin that comes from spending time around the dead. I never saw such a ritual at a rural funeral.
People in China’s major cities, it seems, fear dead bodies and burial places more than people in rural areas.
The ancestors vs. ghosts distinction is interesting.