after so much procrastination, the KL-based relatives on my dad’s side and my family finally managed to settle on a date that everyone could agree on. every year we embark on this family tradition that has to be upheld with all in-town family members present, and with extreme enthusiam and gaiety, or else our elders will twist our ears and make us buy them beer. for some odd reason this usually happens on a Monday. the tradition, i mean, not the beer.
so i slapped on some sunscreen, grabbed my sunnies, a good book and a diet Coke.
and went to camwhore with my grandma.
i know that if i launch into a lengthy know-it-all explanation on the tradition of the Ching Ming Festival for the benefit of the non-Chinese folk, i am just going to make myself sound very stupid and at the same time open up an avenue for Sieu Theng to laugh at me till kingdom come. see, i’m not exactly the most culture-savvy Chinese girl in KL, so i’m gonna try to save myself some face and not attempt to blog about this festival like i know it inside out, cos i dont. embarassingly.
but basicallyyyy, it’s a festival for the Chinese to honour their ancestors. we go to their graves, clear their gravestones, and place food offerings before them. for some families, this is like a reunion or a family picnic thing, almost. it’s a happy occasion.
(okay, i couldnt possibly have gotten that wrong, right?!)
so for once, my family was actually early. this is the shocker to end all shockers, cos we are always the latest to arrive no matter what the freaking occasion. see, i told you all oredi, the reason why i’m always late is cos it’s heriditary. BELIEVE ME LAH!
we were like an hour early and i was so bored. and since my brothers and my father and my mother wouldnt camwhore with me, i camwhored with the Gods of the Earth and Sky!
no fun. they were very stony camwhore partners.
after a while, my relatives arrived with all the necessary Ching Ming stuff. yay! for the food offerings, there was dim sum, meat, cakes, muffins, fruits and my grandma’s favourite Stout, haha. so much food for such a small woman.
and holy shit, check it out man, Granny’s got a brand new Merc Benz!!!
this reminded me of a convo that i had with Jovann et al back in Form 2, so just to annoy my dad i asked him, “eh you all burn car for Eema (granny), you think hell got gas station ah?”
“aiyah dont ask stupid questions.”
“you burn her a TV, she got electricity meh!”
“…”
“and then ah, you burn mahjong set without the mahjong table, what’s the use?”
“this is a chinese tradition, we just follow, okay?” dad sighs.
“i’m not saying i dowanna follow. i’m just saying it’s very funny. actually you burn her a Merc no point also, she doesnt even have a driver’s license. hey maybe you should burn her a driver’s license!!!”
“stupid, look at the car properly, got chaffeur wan la!”
wah, really wor.
“wei, then you burn Grandma paper money, does that mean there are banks in Hell? who works there? is there a Hell Maintenance Organization on Earth that burns banks and bank staff for the Hellers as well? can dead people apply for jobs in Hell?? huh??”
“shaddup lah.”
while my dad was entertaining my dumb questions, my mom was frantically asking Grandma for tomorrow’s lottery numbers. she does this by ripping up small pieces of numbered paper and shakes them till 4 numbers drop out in order. i’m sure all you ppl with ah-sum mothers like mine will know about this. anyway here’s the number she got -
dont tell my mom i put this picture up!! if really strike, she’ll have to share the prize money with y’all. she isnt going to like that :D but i’m gonna go out on a limb here and share the secret number to tomorrow’s million dollar jackpot with you guys! go on, say it, i’m super nice.
so we just sat and chilled while waiting for Grandma to ‘finish’ her food. man, i remember the day she passed away. it was 1998, and i was sleeping over at Smartypants’ house during the school holidays. one morning at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m, she woke me up and said “wei your mother called. your Eema passed away.”
i was like, “haha. dont bluff.” and went back to sleep.
at the funeral later that day, i was just like @_@ holy crapola.
it was such a long time ago. she’d be 72 if she was still alive. and still drinking Guinness and smacking my granddad upside the head, i’ll bet.
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