It's that time of the year again...清明节!

Unlike previous year, we had qing ming on 5 Apr 2009 (Sun)i.e. the second day of the festival. This year was different from previous years. For the past years, we usually had it 2 weeks before the actual event. It also involved only smaller group. Only 5 of us (My parents, Edwin and his mom including me) set off from ASL at 6 am in Edwin's car.

In a nutshell, we visited ah gong's tomb (entered by pathway 11) first, followed by ah po's tomb (pathway 14F) and finally gong dou & po dou (level 2, sect E) at Bright hill. The morning was kind to us. It was not very hot. We reached there around 6.45 am. Luckily there is a place for us to park the car at every location. Our ancestors are watching us. :)

We did the same things every year. We cleaned the tomb and laid color papers with stones on grass patch behind it. There were other families around us, mostly coming in big groups. Some put up elaborate offerings that were piled up like a small hill beside the tomb. Some did simple praying. Just before, we were prepared to burn the offerings for ah gong. It was the thought that counts. It suddenly dawned on me that the Qing Ming gave family the chance to meet each together. It reminded me of the chopstick stories. As long as our family are united, we will not be broken easily. What say you? : )