'Qing Ming'

At 5.40-ish a.m., yesterday, I was awakened by mum's phone call. In the fear that I might be mucking about while boiling water for my morning bath, and end up late, she insisted that I get straight home to her after washing my face. In that state, she could have asked me to jump into a lake, and I would have obliged, though done without feeling. While fumbling with the keys trying to get into the car, I noticed that my neighbor's were already out and about in their porch, packing things away in the trunk of their vehicle.

I reached her place shortly after driving my usual, almost empty, route and felt it strangely different when I had reached the gate as it automatically opened: snail paced and mocking. I had not noticed the recently installed streetlight which was bathing everything outside a beautiful ochre. It was only somewhere in conversation with mum during breakfast, that I knew. After eating and still sleepy from my lack of shuteye, I suggested to mum that while waiting for our relatives to pick us up for Qing Ming, I was going to catch some winks on the livingroom couch. And I did. They arrived at almost 8.00 a.m.

Last year, there were only four of us. This year, there were seven.

This is another list of differences between this year and last:-

1) I wasn't bitten by leaches. In my absent-mindedness, I had forgotten to wear shoes (I had worn only slippers, and was insect repellent-free, though mum did bring a small jar of salt - which actually served to flavor some pineapple cut at the grave site, instead of killing leaches, in the end).

2) We had breakfast before embarking to Khong Tung (or Cantonese) Hill, where my mum and cousin-in-law offered their prayers in the temple, which was bustling with activity before we resumed trekking to our various family member's graves, namely my grandmother's, my great aunt's and lastly, my dad's, whereas the previous years saw us rushing to finish our Qing Ming early, in hopes of not getting cooked by the April heat and the midday sun.

3) This year, the bustle of the main temple not only consisted of people praying and carrying out the rituals which go hand in hand with Qing Ming, but also illegal DVD peddlers, who were selling various seasons of Chinese drama serials and also, the latest blockbuster movies. It was either those, or some religious documentaries, I'm not sure now.

4) We had to pay an admission fee of MYR10-00 to enter the hill. When my second cousin (who's in his mid-forties, I think), asked the volunteers who were giving out receipts outside our vehicle as to why this was being done this year, a 50-ish woman said (literally) too quickly, "for convenience's sake.", to which almost all of us replied with a profanity, a gasp or a laugh of disbelief (the last was mine). My third cousin (who's almost the same age as my second one), joked that probably we're getting a packaged deal out of this and someone would sweep and clean the graves for us later.

5) I noticed that many this year incorporated fireworks into their usual ritual of burnt, food and libation offerings, those red ones especially, stringed almost eight feet above ground like it was Chinese New Year, all over again.

This year I had actually held prayerfully, sticks of incense at my grandmother's grave. When I was younger, my convictions told me that this was a form of ancestral worship, and that as a Christian, I would have no part in it. Every Qing Ming during that period was one where I ostracized myself; from my mum and relatives - where I found some sort of comfort in cutting the long blades of wild grass which were thriving on each family grave; digging up plants which weren't suppose to be there; or scattering colored pieces of paper over each site - it was always anything else; anything which didn't involve praying. My second cousin then, would be holding up a cup of tea reverently in front of the gravestone, uttering short prayers, pouring three cups as libation, while I'd have my arms crossed, eyes to the sky or elsewhere not as alien; not as unsettling, hoping that I could go home soon.

This year, however, most of the praying was done by my mother (she's consistent), whereas my cousin was more (in a way I can't describe) 'displaced' from his usual role. At my dad's grave, he had burned some trash at the side and the fire had caught on too much due to the abundance of dried grass there, and for a long while, each of us was bathed in steady streams of smoke and occasional flakes of ash. It was here that amidst the chaos of smoke and ash, that we each had a slice of pineapple. And when mum pulled out that jar of salt, everyone smiled and asked for some.

I have never been to a faster Qing Ming.

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