Ceng Beng Festival

End of March until early April in every year Chinese people usually celebrate Ceng Beng Festival. This is the time when Chinese people pay respect to their ancestors by remembering them, cleaning their grave or tomb and burning hell money or other "luxurious" stuff.   This is also the time when everyone come to their parent's home and do family gathering.

Eventho my family is from Chinese line but we - the last 2 generations - didn't actually celebrate Ceng Beng that much.  We do still visit our grandparent's grave in Bogor and usually end up having lunch in one of my aunt's. The last proper Ceng Beng celebration I see was when I was around 10YO. My uncle's wife had lots of colorful food on the table with red candles and lots of burning incense. I waived three incenses each to every single photos on the table, and would patiently waiting there until she said I could eat the food! I didn't like burning the "money" because the smokes hurt my eyes.
However since she joined a certain religion I started to miss those steam chicken, roasted pork, eggs, various chinese cakes, basically the whole food; because she didn't do those ritual anymore.

Last week I had a chance to join Mr Chai's family to celebrate this festival. We woke up early in the morning and went to the Chinese Cemetery at the bottom of Bukit Sulap. Suddenly the memory stikes back.. minus the steam chicken and roast pork (they all vegetarian food) but MORE money! I've never seen so much money like that before. There were some gold plates, dollar from hell bank, suites and dresses with watch and mobile phone and shoes.  After the family gave the respects, all those stuff were burn. The heat was so hot - I had red face after that.

It's great knowing back the culture.. :)