Qing Ming Festival

For many Christians around the world, this long weekend is significant because in the year 33AD, Jesus Christ, Iesos Christos Theou Huios Soter, was crucified on the Passover. Pardon me if my re-enactment of the actual event bares any inaccuracies, for I am not a Christian; i merely did some simple research on the crucifixion.

Anyway, the issue here that i want to blog about is not about Jesus or Good Friday, but rather, the Qing Ming Festival. For a very comprehensive guide to the Qing Ming Festival, please direct yourselves to this wonderful website, created by a bunch of Sec 4 kids from RI and HCI in the year 2006. It was designed by the marvellous ThinkQuest team comprising Nick Tong, Fung Shing, Darren Tan, Melvin, Yu Guang, and myself. More info regarding the team can be fond in the wensite itself.
http://nick.02raffles.net/tq

The Chinese have a firm tradition in giving respects to one's ancestors. Therefore, for many Chinese around the world, the Qing Ming Festival is viewed as an important one.

This morning, I went to offer my respects to my great-grandfather at the Chua Chu Kang Chinese Cemetery. Waking up at 5am, my entire family went down to the cemetery. Fortunately for us, the traffic was good. For me especially, it was an extremely nostalgic experience. It was the simple things that touched me. So many families, on a non-mandatory, non-obligatory contract, made the trip in the wee hours of the morning, bringing along torches, offerings and their sincere hearts. They were bound by tradition, by practicing such procedures, they were actually preserving the customs of the Chinese culture and passing down the tradition to the following generations.

It was the simple things that touched me. (This is not a mistake, I am purposely typing it again) It was sharing conversations with the elders of my family, in simple Teochew dialect, that touched me. It was cleaning the tomb of my great-grandfather, who passed away in 1977, that touched me. It was lighting the joss-sticks in the dark and offering a simple prayer to my ancestors that touched me. It was burning the hell-bank notes that touched me. It was helping my family members to lay out the offerings on the tomb that touched me.

I have no idea for how many years more can these practices be sustained. The Urban Redevelopment Agency has already announced that tombs in the Cemeteries will be exhumed soon for homes to be built. If that happens, the next generations will have nice homes to live in. They will also, most probably, watch cartoons on a Sunday morning during the Qing Ming period.