Cheng Beng duties

I've been terribly busy this month and only now do I have time to write something about this year's Cheng Beng festival. My family had identified last 31st March for Cheng Beng at the graves of my two sets of grandparents as well as at the Triple Wisdom Temple where the memorial tablet of my parents and aunt is located.

How to do Cheng Beng under these circumstances?

Well, that was the plan. But as good plans occasionally went, there were last minute hiccups. It all started about two weeks prior to the Cheng Beng date. I had already contacted my regular grasscutters on the island to spruce my grandparents' graves at both the Batu Lanchang and Wat Pimbang On cemeteries. The grasscutter at Batu Lanchang said okay, he'd get the grave ready for me. The other grasscutter responded with a thumbs-up emoticon which I assumed that he would do the job as well.

Came Cheng Beng day, I was annoyed when we discovered the grave at Wat Pimbang On was unkempt. Nobody had cleared it of the weeds and undergrowth. My attempts at calling the grasscutter went unanswered for at least six or seven times. Nothing much we could do about it; we'd simply have to call another person to spruce up the grave. But the big question was who? The Wat Pimbang On cemetery was not a popular cemetery. Only God knows why my father chose this site for my grandparents' final resting place. There was simply no other people at that cemetery when we arrived there on that day.

How my grandparents' grave looked like after the weeds
and dried leaves had been cleared and the surface
thoroughly washed. But note the uncleared mess behind
the grave.

Luckily, social media came to the rescue. I posted an appeal and someone responded with a lead to a grasscutter from Batu Gantong who agreed to the job. Of course, I had to pay lots more to get this job done, but there were no alternatives. So finally, on the third of this month, I made the journey - alone this time - to carry out my Cheng Beng duties to my paternal grandparents.

I should add here that this Wat Pimbang On cemetery is in a really deplorable state. Simply no one from the Siamese temple is willing to take responsibility over its upkeep despite the cemetery is located on its ground. Thus, the whole place looks like a jungle. Completely overgrown with weeds and full of uncleared fallen leaves. Luckily my grandparents' grave is located near the southern edge of the cemetery which we could reach by the back entrance. But I pity those people whose ancestors' graves are located in the centre of the graveyard. With the thick undergrowth, those graves can be totally impossible to reach. 

One of my former schoolmates who now live overseas told me that he visited his relatives' graves earlier in March to spruce them up but was attacked by ants that fell from the tree branches. Huge ants, he told me. I wonder whether he has successfully managed to clean them up. 

In the meantime, there was an additional Cheng Beng destination for us this year: that of my father-in-law, at the Nirvana Memorial Park in Sungai Lembu on the mainland. It is going to be a permanent fixture from now on. As this year was the first time we went there with the rest of my wife's siblings, we faced the prospect of facing huge crowds with some trepidation. We decided to go there in the afternoon because we heard that there would be lesser people. We were surprised when able to drive easily into the Nirvana ground at about 3pm. It would have been impossible to do this in the morning, especially on Cheng Beng Day itself, one of the staff told us.