Qing Ming

Today, we visited our grandmother's grave which is located all the way in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan. We started our journey 6am this morning. By 8.30am, we were already at Kuala Pilah town for breakfast. All was OK until my 8 years old niece said: "Everybody here is named Kee one...?". Puzzled, I took a look at the signages - Foon Kee, Ming Kee, Sing Kee:

We even had wanton mee here at Pang Kee *chuckles*:

Then it was another 30min drive before we reach the cemetery:

After about an hour being under the scorching hot sun... sweeping and cleaning the tomb, grandmother's grave is finally "cleaned" with 'lalang' all cleared. We then began the custom offering of food, tea, wine, joss sticks so that grandmother can enjoy the feast:


After praying and burning paper accessories, it was time to hit the road to journey back to KL. We only reached KL at 2pm... a full 8 hours since the time we started out this morning and boy was it tiring!

Next week we will be cleaning my grandfather's grave but this time nearer... at Nilai Memorial Park. And that's Qing Ming for us Chinese.

Makes one wonders if our ancestors could really receive the items we 'sent'. But I guess so la, else this tradition wouldn't have lived on till now...

[11.42pm] P.S. Not sure if my brain is fuzzy from the overdose of naps today... but I've been staring at my laptop for the past hour feeling down and low... It suddenly dawned upon me that my life now is like a ship that has suddenly lost its bearings in the middle of a vast ocean... Tho I'm really not sure why I'm feeling this way... this surely is a sad feeling... being forlorn... lost... and hopeless.... Sigh...