Lack of writing and venting has made my life a living hell. So, here goes my bitching. Hopefully in doing so, I’ll be more sane and my life would be less smelly than some stinking poop with some nasty flies buzzing around to taint the innocence of my nose and my eyes.
As most of you Chinese buggers know, Qing Ming Festival ( 清明節 ) is around the corner. For those who are not ah beng or ah lian enough to know what is Qing Ming Festival, allow me to give short explanation on Qing Ming Festival.
All the bloody hoo hah about Qing Ming Festival is about praying to the dead, or to be more particular, your dead parents or your long dead ancestors who are rotting and decomposing six feet under. Qing Ming Festival is also known as Tomb Sweeping Day or All Souls Day and it’s observed by Chinese Taoist, Chinese Buddhist as well as Chinese Folk Believers. Qing Ming usually fall on 4th or 5th April which is 15th Day of the Spring Equinox.
The significance of this festival is to remember the long dead ancestor and usually the people who observe this festival will gather and bring their family and the descendants of the dead like a troop of army from all corners of the world and pray to the dead and sweep or clean up their tomb as a sign of devotion and love towards their dead ancestors.Some also believed that by praying to their ancestors, good luck will come and their life will be blessed.
While some perform the prayers to the dead as a sign of devotion, most elders emphasize on celebrating Qing Ming because they thought it’s a damn great idea to get their busy modern kids to remember their roots or whatsoever contributions their ancestors has made. In other words, it’s a bloody fine trick to get the kids from the bustling city to go back hometown to spend a couple of days with them and the kids have no excuse not to do it because the elders could lecture the kids that they have to go back and pray because it’s their damn obligation to do so.
Most kids these days don’t give a damn about Qing Ming whatsoever. But most are afraid, because they know what will happen if they don’t go back or spend some time to pray to their ancestors. The elders will yadda yadda and nag nag like the most common bitchy housewife you can find in those smelly wet market, and the next thing you know is the news of your fucking unfilial self will be broadcast with the efficiency of CNN and the Internet. Your reputation in the family will never be the same again, and your forehead will be labeled a ‘BITCH’ or a ‘BASTARD’ for being unfilial in the entire clan of your family.
So, bottom line is, even though most modern and open minded youngsters rather be off somewhere else instead of praying and cleaning up graves of people that they don’t even know under the the hot sun, they had no choice, because the only way to shut the pie hole of the elders is by doing whatever fucking thing they asked you to do so that you could spare your innocent eyes and ears from libel and seditions from family clan afterwards.
Growing up from a modern family, I never believed that by praying to the ancestors could bring any luck or benefit. If one tell me that you must pray to your ancestors because you need to tell your brats about family history, that I believe, but not the blessing and financial luck abracadabra. Hell, I don’t even believe that God or any other entity will help you just by praying to Him, because you still need to make some effort to get a good life.
If by praying alone could settle a lot of problems, then why the hell the world is constantly in crisis and at war? If by praying alone could feed the entire family, why the hell do we still need to work our butt off every goddamn day? If by praying alone could makeyou rich, then I supposed, we’ll have cash as rain instead of raindrops.
I have ‘opened’ eyes that can see many things others can see. Wandering soul, dead relatives, you name it. The dead cannot help, no matter how people try to prove and drilled to into your thick skull about it. They are the ones who need help instead, so praying FOR their soul so that they could rest in peace would be more fitting and appropriate than to pray to them to help you with your god forsaken life.
So, peeps, if you bring your brats to the graveyard to clean the tombs of the ancestors that they do not even know, kindly tell them that there is no such thing as an easy way out and not get their hopes high about getting a new remote control car or a new PSP after praying. They are gonna be disappointed and resent the whole Qing Ming thingie if they found out that the tomb of their dead ancestors doesn’t work like making a wish upon a Genie in a bottle. Unless of course, if you decided to act like a Santa Clause and buy em their wishes afterwards.
Cleffairy: It’s too cliche… why do you need to pray to the ancestors if you believed in reincarnation? The long dead ancestors would have been reincarnated, would they not?
hahahahaha……this is one good post.i remember once my mum brought us brats to my dad’s grave and prayed for him for protection and good results for my examination. come on lar…….dad’s not a God. and like you said, even God would want His children to put their effort into what they are doing in order to be successful.
for me, qing ming is an everyday affair. you dont remember your dead relatives or family members only once a year. if they’re are that dear to you, we can visit em graves anytime and just give flowers or something as a sign of respect. not offer chicken, biscuits and rice?? for goodness’s sake, they’re made for us humans to eat. not skulls!!!
happy tgif clef. btw, i’ll be down in kl tonite and back to ktn tomorrow evening. fetching rachel from 2 makeup jobs….got rm5k leh. she’s richer than me now, only 2 days of work. 😛
Calvin… I could never understand all these hoo hah, culture or not. If one truly believe their relative could be reincarnated and went to hell for their sins and whatnot, how in the name of heavens they are still able to help their living relatives and brats? That doesn’t really make sense to me. Going to the tomb and cleaning it yourself out of respect is fine with me, but having your kids to believe that by doing so you’ll get lucky and stuff is abit unintellectual, isn’t it? Aiyoo, if go to grave and pray can get good result, then why the hell do we need to study lah correct or not? =.=
The dead are gone, but they should live in our memories. And I seriously think that even though Qing Ming is a good time to get your brats all together, you should not have them believe that good things can come your way without making an effort for it. That is just plain dumb.
Calvin, I truly believe that God help those who help themselves, and there’s no other way to go about it. If you want something, then you should work your damned ass for it, not just merely making wishes upon something.
And you’re right, if someone is really dear to you and they have passed on, why only remember them once a year and not visit their graves more often than that? You’re right.
OMG, Rachel is Rm5k richer than you. One of these days, must ask her to belanja me lah. LMAO.
To Christianity beliefs…they have gone up to heaven…to Buddhism and Hinduism. they could have rebirth….
this is purely a Chinese Taoism or Confucianism beliefs.
Chris… my take on the dead…. they are rotting underground, and they go no where but decomposing six feet under. LMAO.
Looks like someone’s being forced to go to the graveyard to be bitchin’ like that. Lol. 😛
=.= dammit Vern…ur so right…. *sulk* but then again…’forced’ is a rather strong word… ‘coax’ and ‘strongly persuaded’ is a better way to described my damnable predicament. ARGHHHHHHHH! 🙁
Never mind lah.. usually there’s good food involved. 😀
Unfortunately for me, most of it are traditional food. =.= I’ll be sure to bring KFC, Secret Recipe cakes, pizza hut, McD and loads of junks for the ancestors next time. Liddat only the ‘picnic’ would be more enjoyable! Whahahahah…. yes, I’ll just do that next time!
LOL .. Good post. I couldn’t resist the temptation too and bitched about the paper replicas the Taoists are using to burn to their ancestors. Rather senseless.
=.= Welcome to my blog, BlurryLeo… I can understand if they make up all these to make the youngsters appreciate the family and pay homage to their roots, but then again, some of the rituals are too cliche and doesn’t make sense. 🙁
If you want to hear a reader’s feedback 🙂 , I rate this post for 4/5. Decent info, but I just have to go to that damn msn to find the missed parts. Thanks, anyway!
If you ever want to hear a reader’s feedback 🙂 , I rate this post for four from five. Detailed info, but I have to go to that damn yahoo to find the missed pieces. Thank you, anyway!