cemetery visits and food

[Dejah]

In the thread on chopstick etiquette, there is discussion on visits to the cemetery to pay respect to our ancestors.

When we lived in HK, it was a whole day affair as we had to take the ferry to Kowloon where my grandparents are buried. We had to carry so many things: paper money, gold paper ingots, incense, red candles, sam sang ( crispy pork, whole chicken and a fish). fruit, a variety of baking, etc. For us kids, it was like a picnic...after the serious business was completed.

Now in Canada, we usually visit my father's grave end of May. As in HK, we take all the

"necessaries". We take a metal can to burn the paper money. Strange thing tho'...the money is printed with Hell Bank as the issuer. My non-Chinese hubby thought he should keep a "million dollar" bill as a collectible...but my Mom stopped that...

The money is burned so my father will have lots of money to spend in heaven. The food and wine is also offered for his enjoyment. Crispy pork tastes the best on this day...perhaps because we always go around lunch time and we are starving, and the weather is always lousy!

We go home after and have a feast

On the Sunday after father's Day, our whole Chinese community gather and do the same thing, but we visit ALL the Chinese graves, especially the very old ones whose families are all gone or moved away...the forgotten ones. We just place incense and clean up. After, we all gather at a local Chinese restaurant for a traditional banquet...at lunch time. This restaurant has provided the food for the last 10 years.

We all donate money towards the expenses, and local restaurant suppliers donate meat, veg, fruit and drinks.

Funny how all traditions are food focused!

[Laksa]

Funny how all traditions are food focused!

Hey, ya gotta eat!

When it comes to food, an advantage the dead have over the living is... they don't gain any weight! Ok, that's sick.

[browniebaker]

My father and mother have a forty-year battle going, about whether the food that's offered to the ancestors should be foods that the ancestors liked to eat or foods that we the living like to eat. For example, my late paternal grandmother loved raisins, so my father wants to offer raisins, among other delicacies. My mother is practical, figuring that because we the living will actually consume the food after the offerings are done, the feast ought to comprise foods we like, or foods she needs to use up, like the loofah squash that she has grown too many of in the garden this summer.

[Dejah]

wongste: When it comes to food, an advantage the dead have over the living is... they don't gain any weight! Ok, that's sick.

That's funny

browniebaker: My father and mother have a forty-year battle going, about whether the food that's offered to the ancestors should be foods that the ancestors liked to eat or foods that we the living like to eat.

I was taught that the "sam sang" is a must...as with all ceremonies such as Lunar New Year, bdays, anytime offerings are made to the dieties, ancestors.

The meal following usually has Chinese mushrooms in oyster sauce, bean thread, white simmered chicken...etc. I suppose raisins would be regarded as the fruit component.

[Hest88]

My mother always talks about how these occasions were one of her favorites since it meant they would get to have chicken for dinner.

[herbacidal]

My father and mother have a forty-year battle going, about whether the food that's offered to the ancestors should be foods that the ancestors liked to eat or foods that we the living like to eat. For example, my late paternal grandmother loved raisins, so my father wants to offer raisins, among other delicacies.

Okay, how's this?

On cemetery day, in addition to laying out the eats in front of the tombstone

---roast pork belly (siu yook), Chinese pastries, a whole chicken---

we also bow three times and pour a drink for the dead person into the ground in front of said tombstone.

For my grandfather we pour liquor of some kind

(gin, vodka from airplane bottles---I don't know that he actually drank liquor as opposed to beer).

For my uncle we pour tea, because he didn't drink alcohol.

[trillium]

Too bad XO doesn't come in small bottles, huh? That would be the coolest thing to pour out for the ancestors who drank.

regards,

trillium

[Ben Hong]

Great thread, Dejah. Even though my mother and others are buried in different places, Kirkland Lake, Ont. is where we all try synchronise visits to "walk the hills" (hung san) with all the remaining Chinese (damned few left) in town. You see, that's where my Grandfather and all his "lo wah kieu" cronies are buried and some of them date back to the railroad and head tax days. We observe all the rituals and bring all the foods that your family does. Eating at graveside was abandoned after one attempt due to that time of year being the height of breeding season for mosquitos and blackflies.

One year, a young miscreant who loved to tipple a bit was asked to help in the preparation for the event. Somehow he substituted the real contents of a Johnny Walker Black Label with tea for the "offering". Another older gentleman did the "offering" at several graves because of his friendship with the occupants, and as was their ritual when his friennds were alive, he poured one for them and one for himself. Well this normally avuncular old guy had a real loud bellow when the situation demanded it and his penchant and ability to use his extensive vocabulary of profanities and swear words took on mythical proportions. On that day all kinds of personal records were broken in decibels registered and variety of language used. It was truly a legendary day.

After all the eating and reminiscing was done, the men seize the opportunity to see if the luck they prayed to their departed relatives for was granted and played a few hours of mah jong.

Oh BTW, that young tippler who made the switch won a substantial lottery prize a few years later. All I can say is that there must have been some interpersonal dynamics going on in the spiritual world that we'll never understand.

Edited July 4, 2004 by Ben Hong (log)

[naguere]

Living in Hong Kong (as i was), and knowing the time of year, it was the time of which we speak . I said to Josai, my amah 'Happy Ching Ming'..''It not happy...........'She replied.

Well, it may not be happy but it is a splendid thing to do, to remember your relatives who have gone before every year in such a way.

[Gul_Dekar]

Where I come from in South East Asia, our 'sam sang' is roast pork, chicken and duck instead of fish. Also have chinese pastries, but also includes some other pastries that I think are of S.E. Asian origin.