lavanderblues

Monday, April 04, 2005

ching ming jie...

went to msia over the wkend for cheng meng.. the tomb sweeping festival. interesting that i never really HAD to go and dint care whether i did, but this time around my parents totally dragged me along when i was dying NOT to go. so anw, had a lousy wkend. but i must really say the procedures at the cemetery is really quite interesting.

when you reach the tombstone ( we did 3, my grandfather, my 1st uncle, and a cousin of mine who died of leukemia when i was 4), which is in itself quite elaborate, cos its like a circular thingey demarcating the area which the coffin is buried, then there's the tablet with lotsa symbolic stuff, like my granddad's had 2 lotuses with blood running down them. scary eh. and tiles with pictures of nirvana... whatever that is. its always mountains, and water, and trees and flowers. then there's this entire area for us to stand on, and kneel to pray and whatever.

so when u reach there, you weed the area under which the coffin is buried. then u cover the ground over the coffin with colour paper... (wu se zi, 5 colour paper) and put little stones on them to prevent them from flying away. oh thing was that granddad's tombstone was those half half kind. half for him, when he died in 1986, with his name on it in red... then the other half for my granny who's still living with me... her name is painted on it too, but in gold to signify she havent died yet. gave me the shudders to be visiting my granny's "tombstone" when she's still living and well with me.

ok then you lay the offerings, fruits, their favourite food.. etc, tea... and stack the paper stuff - paper money, erm those paper goods like vcr and what not... at the side for burning. then you light a handful of josssticks... then each of us take 3, and kneel and pray to the dead person in order of our seniority in the family.. thing is if you're same generation as the deceased like the deceased's wife, then you dun have to kneel. and if you're older than the deceased, then you dun have to pray at all.

then light a bonfire to burn all the paper stuff.. the guys had a lot of fun with that. esp my 9yr old nephew. wah he was damn gung ho.
so anw. then you burn. then u light firecrackers and fireworks around the grave. so we went to forage for a long branch, and tied the entire string of firecrackers to it... then all us women and children ran far far away.. left my stupid little nephew who's practically shaking cos scared there with a lighter. he TRIES to light it, fails a few times, then finally does light the fuse, screams bloody hell and runs away as far as he can... then it went off. wah damn loud but quite exciting.. heh

yeah then you can clear off. leaving the colour paper there... which will rot and look like it was never there when you come back next year. budden with the colour paper you can roughly tell which grave had been visited and which hadnt and roughly gauge how long ago it was visited too heh.

and the place was super hot pls... madness. not a tree in sight. and you'd think a graveyard was a very fertile place, what with all the decomposition that takes place there... but there got no green trees. only damn alot of thistles that scratches your feet.

have i ever mentioned i have a younger brother? hahaha. not by birth, but so called recognised in the eyes of some buddhist god i have a younger brother. long long story. i know nothing about him, just his name. which isnt even really his name cos its more of a nickname. bleah hahaha.
my paternal family is huge, convoluted and messy.

lin~*
12:14 pm