I recently travelled to Muar with my parents to pay respect to my ancestors in commemoration of the QingMing Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Festival, as some call it. It's been ages and i really missed this quaint little town. It's so nice that they've opened a new highway from Malacca to Muar, to replace the old narrow trunk roads that always make it near impossible to overtake any huge vehicle in front.
It was the perfect weather as we arrived at the connecting bridge between Sg Rambai and Muar around 8am. We must be crossing over Sg Muar at that point.
Muar town is so small, you virtually need to circle one particular roundabout in the middle of town, just to get to various places surrounding Muar. I recall from my History lessons that Muar used to be called Bandar Maharani.
Here's a sign that's possibly found only in Muar - It's not the road bump image that i find fascinating; it's the little arrow that's pointing to the location of the bump. Cute.
If Muar is a small place, we went to an even smaller place called Bakri in Muar. This is the Chinese cemetery in Bakri. Dunno why my dad kept calling this place 'Pakri..Pakri'.
I was here to pay respects to my, wait for it..... great grandparents and great great grandparents.
Yup, all the way back to wat,...100 years ago??
Since we only come here once a year, we had to do some cleaning of the tombsite.
Here i am after clearing the dirt and garbage from the site.
Lots of loosening of soil to be done too as the rain washed mud into the tombsites.
Dear kept himself preoccupied showing his skill of fanning the joss paper to ease the burning process later.
Soon, the aunt and uncles joined in the annual ritual. No fancy-schmancy offerings like a paper bungalow, paper iPad or paper Hybrid car. Come on, neither of my great grandparents would even know how to operate an iPad. Not unless i also burn the User Manual for them.
This year we kept it simple and 'clean' without the roast pork/ chicken/ meat. Not sure if this quantity of food was enough to last till next year's visit though.
I've also learnt that we should always make sure our ancestors finish their meal first before calling it a day.
This means tossing two coins onto the floor and if you get two opposite sides facing up, then they're done 'eating'. I think my uncle tossed like 5 times before he got the 'green light' from above. :-)
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The best part was eating the food we all brought. I especially enjoyed this 'Put Chai Ko' (haha, did you pronounce this correctly, my Chinese speaking friends?) with its special sweet garnish and sambal. Famous from a corner coffeeshop in Muar town.
Boy, i miss having picnics like this in a cemetery. Nothing to get all freaky out about - merely spending some quality time with our loved ones who are long gone but i'm sure still remain in our hearts. Without them, who are we, right?
Oh and i also caught Dad with his fangs of steel, ferociously tearing apart a stick of sugarcane. OMG!!
Now THAT's freaky.
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