Jade Emperor worship

Today's the ninth day of the first Chinese lunar month - still well within the 15-day period of our Chinese New Year festival - the day that the Baba Nyonya and Hokkien community in Penang celebrate the Hokkien New Year and offer worship to the Jade Emperor Deity. Actually, the celebrations kicked off last night on the stroke of 11 o'clock as we Chinese reckon every new day to begin at 11pm and not midnight.

A long time ago when I was small and living in Seang Tek Road on the island, my maternal grandmother always made it a point to celebrate the worship on a grand scale. Nothing can be grander than to place the worship table, usually the table from the hall or kitchen, on stools to raise it as high as practically possible and thus closer to heaven where the Jade Emperor resides. The day earlier, she would have ordered several long stalks of sugarcane to tie around the legs of the table. Food preparation would take the whole day, and my mother and aunt had to help her. Non-stop work here, and sometimes there would be women relatives coming to lend extra hands. The house would be visited at night for the joint worship as 11pm crept closer. It was to be noted that my grandmother, as the eldest in her family, was the focal point for her five younger siblings to congregate during such occasions. At the end of the worship session, a huge bonfire of joss paper would be lit on the road in front of the house.

I don't know what happened but at one point, all grand worship was stopped on advice from her brother-in-law who everyone accepted was very knowledgable in metaphysics. During that year, there was a huge accident in downtown Bridge Street (now known as CY Choy Road) on the eighth day of Chinese New Year. If I remember correctly, a bus had rammed into one of the old houses along the road sometime in the afternoon, sending dust into the air. When the dust settled, the residents living in houses near the point of collision found their food stuff all covered with a thick layer of whitish dust. Especially the mee koo which was traditionally red, and now covered white with dust. The news spread like wildfire.

Bad omen indeed, my grandmother's brother-in-law said when the news reached his ears, for this sign to appear during Chinese New Year. "Mee koo pian peh koo on Pai Tnee Kong meh," he declared solemnly. What he said was that the red mee koo had turned to white mee koo on the night when we were supposed to worship the Jade Emperor, never mind the fact that it was only dust-coated. For him, it was surely a Sign from heaven. Thus from that year onwards - it must be sometime in the 1960s - everyone decided to end the joint Pai Tnee Kong celebrations and all her siblings began worshipping the Jade Emperor on their own on whatever scale. My grandmother continued to worship the Jade Emperor on Pai Tnee Kong Meh but this was now on a small scale. No more huge table on raised stools for the worship. She moved a small table below the Jade Emperor's small altar mounted on the left pillar at the front of the house, and on it would be placed small plates of fruits and sweetmeat, including sugarcane that had been chopped into small edible sizes.

My family continued this practice even after we moved to Seberang Jaya and later to Bukit Mertajam. While many of my neighbours here worship the Jade Emperor's birthday on a large scale, ours continue to be very modest. We utilise only the available space on the altar which is mounted on the wall. Thus, come Pai Tnee Kong Meh, we only offer three types of fruits or sweet delicacies. 

Tua Pek Kong temple in Taman Jernih, Bukit Mertajam

This year, my wife suggested that we shouldn't be worshipping the Jade Emperor on Pai Tnee Kong Meh since not even a year had passed since her father had died. I didn't want to argue with her. Okay, if she didn't feel like it, then let's not worship this year. No problem with me. In fact, we also decided not to hang the red cloth banner above the front door in deference to her wishes although many of my relatives said that I could still do so as I was only a son-in-law and not a son. But as I said, no problem with me. That's why this Chinese New Year, I also did not decorate the fruits with small red paper cuttings for deity worship. Then suddenly during one of our pre-festival forays to the nearby Kampong Baharu market for our shopping and preparations, we bumped into one of her relatives who told her that we could still worship the Jade Emperor but on a small scale. I don't know how much smaller our worship could be 😁 but in the next few days, I managed to pick up a bunch of green pisang rajah. Only the grand pisang rajah can do for such worship, okay, and not any other varieties of banana. And that's what we had for worship of the Jade Emperor last night.

Nandaka Vihara Meditation Centre, Bukit Mertajam

But....we did something else last night. After we had set out the altar for worship, we went to the Tua Pek Kong temple in my neighbourhood. Normally we would have visited this temple on the first day of Chinese New Year itself but somehow, it didn't happen. Last night, we decided to go there and found that the temple had also laid out an altar for worship of the Jade Emperor..

From the Tua Pek Kong temple, we also visited the Nandaka Vihara Meditation Centre where the final night of their seven-night Paritta chanting was taking place. This annual Paritta chanting is undertaken by a group of Buddhist monks from Ceylon. The nightly chants were usually for two hours from 8pm but for the final night, the monks took turns to chant throughout the night until the following morning. We didn't stay there for long but only for about half an hour. Nevertheless, it was quite an experience for me.