Today ....
Was the sleepiest day ever....
zzZzzZzz....

I woke up at around 5-6a.m pagi pagi by my parents...
To go Cheng Beng..

Wuts Cheng Beng? In mandarin its call Qing Ming Jie.
In english... theres a lotta names for it...

• All Souls Day
• Clear Brightness Festival
• Festival for Tending Graves
• Grave Sweeping Day
• Chinese Memorial Day
• Tomb Sweeping Day
• Spring Remembrance

(copy pasted from wikipedia. XD)
Wanna noe more? Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival

Its basically a festival for the dead, its something like Bon Odori or maybe Halloween? I guess?
But its not something to celebrate or enjoy though..

The chinese is really serious about this festival though, if the ritual or tradition is not handled properly, there are fears that they might be cursed. And also, theres some who say that if the ritual is done properly or the tomb is placed in a feng shui positive place, the family of the dead, which the family prayed for will proper.

For me, I am not really sure about the steps of the ritual myself, I just go with the flow coz its very complicated. Many rules are set.Steps are very important, u must pray this first, must do this before praying, must do that after praying... bla bla.. kinda mahuan in my opinion -.-"

Anywayz.. I forgot to get a good pic of my gramp's tomb.. but a chinese's tomb is basically something like this.

~My gramp's tomb is sth like this, but without the carpet grass~There's a time duration for this festival every year. But ppl usually pick saturdays and sundays coz its more convenient, dun have to ponteng skolah and mintak leave. lolx..
During 1st weekends when the festival started, thousands of ppl wake up early in the morning to visit the graves.

~Thousands of tombs, thousands of families~

The one I went too was Teluk Bahang one.. and another is at Balik Pulau.
This time I went on Friday, so it wasn't pack... (luckily!)
For the last few years, my family woke up at 6a.m to go queue, traffic on the road to Teluk Bahang. Seriously.. the traffic is so queue to the extend that if we stop the car in the middle of the road to go for lunch, it won't be a problem. When we finish eating, the traffic still wouldn't have move an inch. How I noe? My uncle tried it before. lolx.. No kidding.

Why pick dawn u may ask? Because it was say, the earlier the better. If you did the ritual after 1. Its counted as Yin, which means moon or the dark. So its not actually a good thing. So, many ppl strive to pray before even 9, or else, the sun would roast u and u can be a main dish for the ritual. lolx.. Siou Bak!

What's more? You can actually communicate with your ancestors/the one u praying for. How?
They used two coins of the same value. Exp, 20 cents coin and two of em. They ask a question and they throw it. If the coins ended up on the same side, it means no. If the coins ended up on a different side, it means yes. Seriously, I had this case once. My fren actually use this method.. to chat with her grandpa.. Her questions was.. "Hi Gramps! Am I pretty?" "Hey gramps, do you think I would get a hot husband in the future?" "Do you think mum and dad would buy me a car?" ........ I look at her... and I am speechless....

What is needed during the ritual? Incense, Heaven's money, Some yellow paper thingy, Food, tea and many thing else. Some ppl even offered flowers or they burn extra stuffs such as house, or car for their ancestors or the ones they went to pray for.

~Burning the heaven's money and some other stuffs~
Believe it or not? Sometimes, ppl are so extreme, they spent hundreds over (maybe near a thousand) on just this ritual.

There are just a few things that I am curious about of this festival.

What am I Curious about?

1. Why do people offer flowers along wif the food?
I am really wondering.... izit whether they are trying to provide a romantic candlelight dinner with flowers in the middle of the table.. eh hem.. altar.

2.If I burn handphones for the dead, is there a service provider up there?
How can u be so sure.. theres service provider up there leh? Nanti yellowman say, "I cannot follow you" baru tau. Celcom nanti say "Paiseh, this is not my territory". Maxis? I doubt it.

3. Burning car.
Eh, just in case la.. u burn car. How sure are you, got petronas or shell up there? hor hor? how bout the road tax? Can kena saman not? How bout driving license? The next time u burn.. you gotta burn JPJ policeman to jaga heaven's road. Maybe you can burn a voodoo doll of Samy Velu do build a highway up there? neh?

4. Burning laptop.
I bet you forgot to burn windows vista or windows XP for them? How they wan use if don't have operating system? How bout wifi service up there? Got burn celcom broadband to them? Rmb to pre-install the msn for them o, den maybe u can tok to them through messenger.

5. Burning prada and LV.
Rmb to burn with certificate one, later they kena tangkap cetak rompak.

6. If you burn all those, how sure are you they would get them?
I wonder they got registered post up there ah? DHL? FedEx?

7. Is this one of the major contributors to global warming ah?
If you guys can do something about international blackout for an hour for a year...
Try to suggest something about this will ya? Maybe u can give an idea about...
Instead of burning heaven's money, try to create an idea of bank in, or maybe cheque or credit instead. lolx.. how to do dat? u guys think la.. lolx..



Oh ya... a piece of advice.. no matter how patriotic your gramps or whoever u are praying to are... PLS.. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO BURN ANY FLAGS...
lolx..