A bird’s-eye view from the viewing tower of the mangrove forest
Both adults and children enjoyed the exploration in the mangrove forest very much, and the children had learnt a lot from the beautiful nature world too.
After 6 years, here we met again--the boys and girls from 6M as well as their cikgu!
Though not all of them were here, but still feeling most excited to have most of them here!
It’s a night that filled with laughter and chatters of joy!
Most heartfelt thanks to the Quek’s family for generously sharing their most precious time and most comfortable home, especially Mrs. Quek for her most sincere effort to get us together again.
Time flies, the children are all grown, so young, so pretty, so vigorous, so witty, so lively……and they are yet to be matured, to be wiser while greeting the challenges lying ahead!
Good luck and all the best to you, girls and boys, the world is rich, be humble, and you will gain a lot from the world!
Peaceful mind is just like placid water, it helps us to see and recognize the world around us clearly, and with a clearer mind, we will be able to make wiser decision and to resolve the problems encountered in our life efficiently.
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……
