Traditional Visits

We visit to our grandma once a year during the Chinese ancestor praying season.

This year, eldest bro’s 2 boys were reluctantly dragged out from underneath their warmest blanket early in the morning as they were wanted to come with us. They were not blamed for not interested in the visit as they really don’t know their great grandma at all. We had to set out early as the traffic at the graveyard would be really heavy some time later.

Before entering the graveyard compound, we had to pray to the God of Earth……After praying to the God of Earth, we found that the oranges that supposed to be offered to the God were still in the plastic bag held by Cliff, bro’s youngest son… Well, we guessed that the God of Earth would definitely not blame the boy as this was his very first visit and he was such ignorant of everything here.

We offered incense, candle light and some fruit to grandma, we had also ‘banked in’ some ‘cash’ into her ‘account’. We hoped that with the cash banked in, she could go and get her necessities herself as we didn’t bring her any as others did.

Next, we went to the Christian cemetery to pay our respect to our late aunt, our dad’s only sister, and uncle, as well as their eldest son. Just like my nephews didn’t know about their great grandma, I had hardly any impression in my memory about our aunt as she passed away in her early age when I was still very young. But, I was told that both aunt and uncle were our benefactors when we were young, without their kindness and generosity, we might have been starving during our childhood, and some of us might have even been given away to other family to ensure our survival. They were very much appreciated in our family!

Finally, we went to visit dad. Dad’s cremains were brought from a temple in Malacca back to our home town a few years ago to be placed at an organization that he participated before.

Visit to our deceased family members is a way of paying respect and appreciating their contributions to our family before, it also reminds us to treasure our present relationship with our beloved family members and even other people around us. It’s a traditional practice that has been carrying on and on for decades among the Chinese……