Shriners

For the past week I've been coming home to see people standing around this cardboard box at the base of this tree about ten feet past the front door. Since I come from behind it, all I could see was that there was this Brillo box and people sitting around it, putting their hands in it, then stepping away. I imagined a cat or some weird animal was living in there and these people were feeding it. Since ther were always people around I never went around front to see what it was. Then one day last week no one was around so I snuck up to take a look.
Taped to the tree was this picture. Turns out it was a little rememberance shrine. I guess he died recently and this was probably his spot.
The Brillo box was filled with candles and a can of Old Milwakee beer. I guess he liked Old Milwakee. It's interesting how similar this shrine is to the ones I see in peoples homes in China and HK. It's cool to see rituals like this still exist and survive in this country.