Zao Jun, the Kitchen God
the watcher by the stove
fireZao Jun watches the household from above the stove and reports each family's year to heaven; to dream of him is to feel your private life gently witnessed, and to ask what report your daily kindnesses would write.
Before his yearly trip to heaven the family smears his paper lips with malt sugar, so the report comes out sweet — or his mouth sticks shut entirely.
His picture hangs by the stove all year, steam and smoke rising over it like incense; the humblest god has the best seat in the house.
He sees the wasted rice and the sharp word, the kindness and the lie; nothing in the kitchen is hidden from the god of the kitchen.
On the twenty-third of the last month his paper image is burned and he rises with the smoke to make his report; every household sends up its own ambassador.