'Qing Min' Day - 清明节

Auspiciously it is a day of 'cleaning' the grave and worship the deceased, be them our ancestors, distant or closed relatives and closed ones. Mostly Buddhist Chinese who will wake up very early in the morning to go to the cemetery which located in the furthest rural area of the state, my grandfather was cremated and he was placed in the Pokok Sena, in Hokkien we called the place 'Gor Pak Long' which means 500 yards, logically it is known as Alor Setar Chinese Cemetery, 亚罗士打山庄.


My mom woke me up at 6 o'clock today, I was lazy though but I know it is my responsibility, my deceased cousin Siang who was my senior is to be worshipped by juniors of the family only, the elder and whosoever is older than him should not worship or even buy things for him like paying for the flowers or even prohibited from buying hell money for him. So that left me, and the other much younger cousins.


We got up and get washed, get the food ready, the tea for worship, papers for burning, including the hell money, paper clothing, paper shoes, jossticks, red candles, a lot of roast pork, some dish with rice and my grandfather's favorite - Nescafe 'O' gao (thick).

After gathering the goods and foods, we headed off to the destination, we have a lot of 'person' to visit for the day. A total of 3 places we have to go.


The first we went to our great great grand father's tomb...am sorry it was his grave, we were placing some old newspapers in front of his grave stone and burning some red colored candles, food, tea and alcohol was placed there too, and we even placed many small and colored paper on his grave with a jossticks firmly stood on it to prevent it from flying. After the preparations, I then lighted a bunch of jossticks and passed everyone present, 3 sticks each to pay their respect and place them in the rusted tin with sand in it. For awhile later I held 2 coins in my palms, facing each other, shakes a bit and then dropped to the floor in front of the grave stone which has a name together indicating the surname and the person's hierarchy in the family. The first round had already proved that my gggrandfather has finished his meal, by looking at the coins, one up and the other down. If 2 facing down = not finish, If 2 facing up = laugh / happy / doesn't mean he had finish his meal though.







After nodding to my aunt as to indicate, she quickly cleaned and kept the food into the plastic bag and washed the cups with the water we brought along. After that we feasted on the 'siew bak' roast pork before we keep the rest to take home. And we drank some Nescafe before we moved on to the other place.


At our grandfather's slot (he was cremated and placed in a porcelain urn and inside a small slot where a small photo of my grandfather and name are displayed on, and which I believed my uncles bought it for RM 3,300.00 which is written on the other end of the slots the same level as my grandfather's), there's long tables in front of the displays and a sign telling 'No offerings beyond this point' hanging at the wall beside.





After placing the food and Nescafe 'O' gao, we had a long wait, a lot of people were crowding the place, there's people on the road, people at the cremating area, people at the temple beside, people beside us, left and right. And smells of everything, we even smelt the king of fruits, somebody brought it and served it as an offering to their 'loved' one I guessed.


Finally when we got the approval from grandfather, my cousins brought the 'papers' to burning area where they placed it to burn for grandfather. And then done the cleaning and on the road again to our last destination, the Alor Setar Siam Temple.


The last venue, where my cousin Siang has been placing there, is the only one we did things on our own, without adult or elders' supervision, we received orders and advice, but we would still get the temple's advice ourselves, it's for the best, and we enjoy doing it...although we have to endure the heat when we burn the papers, imagine you are in the heat with others, the heat from the fire, weather and the flying hot ashes towards your face and made you stink like a overcooked / over roasted pork.


Even cousin Siang agreed with us, when I was thinking to myself after both the coins turned up, and then one up and one down the second time, the siam monk chanted at cousin's altar then we keep the remaining food into the container and was ready to head home.


We took the papers outside where the burning area is, it was piled with mountains of ashes and they were flying in every direction, we fan away the ashes with our hands trying to get in and secure a corner to burn the papers to cousin. Every clothing has cousin's full name on it, I guessed it would be easier for him to recognize his since there will be too many clothes burning down tonight, after pouring the coffee on the piles indicating the end of the burning, we headed home exhausted and looking forward to a nice cold bath, on the way back we went to Tesco which is not far from my grandmother's house, to get some lemongrass and prawns to cook a sour and sweet Tomyam for dinner.