Hey, it's Lovar.

We're getting more new episodes ready for you in January, but in the meantime, while

we get ready for the new year, we're releasing new 3D immersive remixes of some of my favorite

episodes about new beginnings.

I sincerely hope you enjoy.

Hi, I'm Lovar Burton, and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

In every episode, I handpick a different piece of short fiction, and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them, and I hope you will too.

Today I am going to read for you another worldly story by Jamie Gaw.

Jamie is a speculative fiction writer and a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy

Writer's Workshop, Class of 2016.

She's published short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a bunch of different venues,

and she's also co-edited the anthology The Sea Is Hours, Tales of Steam Punk Southeast

Asia, and she also edited the Wiscon Chronicles Volume 11.

Now I'm going to give you a bit of background in case you're not familiar with the dialects

or the religious practices that take place in today's story.

Jamie is Malaysian Chinese, and this story comes from one of her annual trips to Singapore.

It features two practices in Chinese folk religion that are still celebrated in Malaysia

and Singapore.

One of them is Changbang, or Qingming during which Chinese people clean the tombs of their

ancestors.

And it's a Chinese belief that it's unlucky to arrive in the afterlife empty-handed,

...