This year's Ching Ming Festival or Chingming or Tomb Sweeping Day or Ancestors Day or Cheng Beng falls on the 5th of April. Wow! So many names to it ya.
Anyway, this is the day/time where we visit our ancestors grave sites, sweep, wash, clean, clear (grasses) and offer food, fruits, drinks (tea and wine) and paper money, paper clothing, paper bags, paper shoes, paper jewelries, paper handphone, etc. etc.
Like previous years, we always celebrate it a week earlier to avoid the traffic jam. As usual we came the day before to do the clearing and cleaning. The next day we brought the food and praying materials which will be burnt for the ancestors just before we leave. Here are some pics to give you some ideas of this celebration.
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| We left early morning around 7:00 am but still got caught in the jam. Smoke in the background from burning of joss sticks and paper offerings. |
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| Still caught in the jam. Can't tell the difference between rows of cars and rows of tombs :) |
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| This is our "outing" spot. |
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| Food, fruits, rice, soup, wine, tea, kuih, noodles. All the favorite of the dear departed. |
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| This year we decided to bring the boys along. Their first time and its like a picnic. |
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| Hot hot day! |
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| While waiting for the dear departed to finished their meal. |
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| Panoramic view - about half of the cemetery. Click to enlarge. |
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| This is at Nirvana Memorial Park, near Bau. Looks like a park/garden. |
We have something like this, Memorial Day, here in the States. Generally, we clean up the graves of our veterans and family members, and leave flowers at the gravesites- but it's not as elaborate (or cheerful!) as Ching Ming appears to be. Our gravesites aren't as pretty, usually, either- westerners tend to be, ah, a little more grim.
ReplyDeleteI'd trade you holidays in a heartbeat! ;)
Yes, it is similar and you are right that our memorial day here is more like a family outing, except of course for those who are visiting the recently departed.
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