Qing Ming Jie

Qing Ming Jie means Clear and Bright Festival in direct translation, or it is also called Tomb Sweeping Day in English. It falls on the 4th of April this year (just realised that it is a leap year) and it does bring back lots of memories. It is a day when Chinese visit the ancestors' graveyards to remember and honour them.

Prior to the actual day years back, I remembered helping my grandmother fold yellow pieces of joss paper into something which is shaped like a gold ingot. First, you roll it into a tube, then press the ends in making the top part wider and sharper compared to the lower part. I think this is one of the easiest method of making it. There are other more complicated ways. We managed to make 2 big plastic bags of that paper ingots after half an hour.

Since my family moved back to Kuala Lumpur, my mum and dad wakes up very early on the day itself. They will go with my other relatives to the grave of my maternal grandfather to clear the wild grass and tidy up the tomb. Usually they'll pay somebody to help with the trimming of the grass which is a wise move considering how thick undisturbed wild grass can get. Imagine, there's even business opportunity for some people on that day.

After cleaning the grave. they'll then offer tea, wine, food, and burn the paper ingots and other paper replica of things which they will want to offer to the dead. Too bad they never brought me or my sister along before. It would be interesting for me to witness all these rituals personally.

I have always been fascinated by the creativity and modernisation of paper replicas which are produced nowadays. A local Malaysian newspaper reported that the Astro decoder (this is used to receive direct-to-home satellite television in Malaysia) is a hot selling paper offering for Qing Ming this year. Now I'm wondering if broadcast signal could be received in Hell as well? Other types of paper offering include cars, houses, platinum credit cards, make-up, wine, cigarettes, mobile phones etc. They can be of actual sizes or scaled down. (An issue of open burning just crossed my mind, but tradition is tradition, we cannot ban it.)

Talking about mobile phones, I came across the DIY paper offering for Apple Iphone from Studio Leung.
I bet there's even Nintendo Wii or Playstation 3. Maybe MacBook Air as well. I think I would just burn a bank containing a lot of hell money for my ancestor so that they can just buy what they really want. It's just me worrying if they didn't know how to use the mobile phone, or maybe the games that came along with the Nintendo doesn't suit their taste. (Mental note: include instruction manual and warranty card as well) Who knows they prefer to have a new computer with the fastest wireless modem so that they can play Dota with each other instead?

It is only after coming to the UK that I realise how unique and variable Malaysian festivals are and the impact that they have on me. I guess no matter how far you go, your roots will always anchor you to home.