1.   In some cultures people revere their ancestors, even leaving food offerings for them.

2.   Shinto Shintoists, practitioners of the Japanese religious tradition, regard death as a curse but revere dead ancestors as kami, or sacred spirits.

3.   The tradition is also deep in Judaism and in Eastern religions that revere ancestors.

4.   But in a country where ancestors are revered, he has painstakingly pieced together a family archive destroyed, like thousands of others, in the Cultural Revolution.