Tending graves in the weeks before Tomb Sweeping Day can be a profitable line of temporary employment, with a weekly income of more that NT$10,000, a Pingtung college student has discovered.
National Pingtung University of Science and Technology agricultural student Wu Kun-ta (吳坤達) said his family — who live in Taipei — usually travel to Taichung to visit their ancestors’ tombs, and they usually arrive at the grave site at about noon.
As a result of those experiences, he said he realized there could be a market for tomb-sweepers who would tidy up family graves for people who cannot tend to the tombs themselves, and so he began moonlighting as a grave-tender when he started studying in Pingtung.
Over the past four years, during the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday period, he said he would stay in Pingtung County pulling weeds and clearing trash from grave sites for a negotiated fee.
He advertised his services by putting up posters in graveyards in Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔), Wanluan Township (萬巒) and Jhutian Township (竹田), he said.
Wu said that he typically charges between NT$500 to NT$1,500 for each grave site, and with the temporary job proving so lucrative, some of his classmates who also stayed in Pingtung during the vacation came to work with them.
He once made more than NT$10,000 in one week, he said, adding that because he studies agriculture, it was easy for him to clear weeds from overgrown graves.
In addition to earning extra cash, tidying graves for farming families is a useful way for him to get to know potential employers, Wu said, claiming that several farming groups had said they would be willing to hire him when he graduates.
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