Visit to Ah Po's tomb on 11 Dec04

It had been a while since the last 7th. The next ritual is scheduled on 14 Dec. As a pre-ritual event, the family was expected to visit the tomb few days prior to the ritual. To accomodate the time of everyone, 11 Dec (Sat) morning were chosen. 2 vans and 1 car were mobilised. The meeting venue was at ASL and the time set was 6 am. I did not sleep well the night before as I was afraid to miss the time. Later, I heard that most of them woke up as early as 3 - 4am to prepare. And Kim and Dou went home only at 3am and woke up at 5am. I must admit that my temper that day was extremely "touchy" like a dormant vocano. It would blown up at the slightest noise. Luckily, it took 2 hands to clap. The emotional outburst was kept to the minimum. *phew*

Back to the ASL. We waited till all arrived before we set off to our final destination. Before that, all were busily doing a final inventory check. It was like a "market". Like fang pointed out. It's a routine of A telling B and B telling C. Quite chaotic. But the amazing thing was everything was in order at the end of that. : )

We set off at around 615am. It was initally a convoy of 3 vehicles. Then the convoy went separate direction. One van took the PIE route, while the other van took the SLE route. And the car tailed the latter after topping up at the petrol station. All reached the entrance to the cetemetery at around 5 mins past 7am. It was the case of the blind leading the blind. To be honest, it was like a maze inside. There are occasions where we had to do a u-turn as we turned wrongly into a dead end. Luckily, we managed to find the direction signs that helped us to the eventual discovery of ah po's tomb.

Once there, we unload the stuff and headed towards it. There were a few workers working on neighbouring tombs. The place was wet, probably from the heavy downpour on the night before. The older folks went around ah po's tomb to check for defects, as the tomb guy would be coming to collect the remaining money for the building of the tomb later. To their disgust, they found that one of the vases were disjointed. Apparently, they did not fix the vase properly. Later, we found out from the tomb guy that it was due to the wet weather the past few days that did allow the glue to set in properly. The tomb guy helped us put red cloth round the tombstone as instructed by the priest the day before.

While waiting for the priest to come, everyone kept themselves occupied in some ways. Some wiped the tomb. Some arranged the offerings. Some walked around and recced other tombs. As times passed and no priest in sight, the aunties were complaining of the priest's inpunctuality. As they would need to report to work at 10am. We tried to call the priest and was told that he was on the road. At around 5 mins past 8am, we saw a mercede benz cruising in the distant road. Then the ritual began with all of us offering a josstick to ah po. Each of us held a josstick in the hand while the priest recited the prayers. It was followed by a series of bowing. It lasted for 10 mins. Then each of us broke a hardboiled egg and threw the egg shell on top of the grass patch on top of the tomb. We scattered color papers on top and inserted josssticks.

Then the priest recited some prayers and we burned offerings for the earth god. After that, we burned offerings for ah po. That completed the simple ritual for that day. The priest informed the family about the arrangement for the coming ritual on 14 Dec 04. One van and the car set off to ASL to pray the ancestor. While the other van sent the aunties to work and third uncle home.