Thursday, September 15, 2005

Yesterday I went to the cemetery with some of my family members to witness a 'tiao dang' ritual. My uncles are staunch Taoists and one of them happen to be on good terms with a Tao deity called Dua Ya Bei. My mum said he has formidable powers. The Dua Ya Bei will possess watchacallit, ji tong I guess, then he will help us predict stuff we want to know, as well as what my grandma want to tell us.

The cemetery was pitch black and there are draughts of cold wind blowing. We had to bring torchlights to find my grandma's grave. You must note that my grandma's grave have not been set up yet and there were just mounds of earth all around. Freshly dug graves, to be more precise. My dad have to go around all these mounds, offering them incense as we were disturbing them by conducting a ritual. I was actually stepping on them *cold breeze*

Seeing a tiao dang ritual in the middle of the night in the cemetery is definitely rare. The Dua Ya Bei helped us to see the fengshui of my grandma. The possessing of the ji tong was not really scary. The ji tong just started shaking his body to and fro and he started speakng in a different tonation with very weird, slurred hokkien. He began giving instructions for the fengshui, as well as conveying what my grandma wants to let us know, like she told us that her maids we gave her are disobedient and asked he daughter in laws to conduct some ritual to scold them. I thought it was quite cool.

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I am really proud of being part of a Taoist family. Actually I understand that many think Taoism is a rather vulgar and low class religion. Taoists are normally very interested(not obsessed) in making quick bucks(4D, Toto, Mahjong), in hokkien terms, huat ar. Adults will actually always ask for wealth in any occasion to pray. Even in occasions where we were tear stricken watching the paper house for my grandma burning we were asked to eat the huat cake and shout a beefy echoing "huat ar!!!"

It is in my opinion that only Taoists can think of huat-ing in moments of grief like that. Can you imagine

A Christian kneeling infront of crucified Jesus, " Jesus, please answer my prayer"
Jesus, "Yes my child?"
Christian," Please choose 4 numbers for me", then fervently squashing small balls of papers and throwing them in the air.

Sorry to any Christians that reads my blog. Really totally no offense intended. I just wanted to highlight the difference.

Apart from this, Taoists are also loud. I mean, most taoists are hokkiens. Have you ever in your life hear someone speaking hokkien softly? Not to mention, we have our gongs, cymbals, trumpets and all that shit during praying. The people playing the cymbals do not have any music scores. They just clang all the way. From bar 1 to bar 400.It is really hard not for anyone of the same religion as us to find us noise pollutors.

People also think that Taoists are major air pollutors because we burn so many stuff for the dead, like the tonnes of joss papers, the big big paper house, the paper Mercz, plus Rolexes, clothes,necklaces,mahjong..blah blah blah blah blah. Oh ya, so have a imitation of Nokia phone. It is 8910 model and branded as Nolia if I am not mistaken.

Albeit all this interest in wealth, the dong dong chai and the air pollution stuff, we do promote good values like the rest of the religions. That night when Dua Ya Beh was possessing the ji tong, he actually preached about "xi(1) fu(2)"(cherishing what you have now and being contented) and talked about filial piety as well.

I just realised what Monik said was right. She once told me that every religion do have a grain of truth in them, as they are always preaching about good values, just packaged in different ways. We should not be separated by religion at all, as everyone is just looking for a spritual home, dorned in different manners. So what if one family out of my whole big family decides to take on another religion? Does it calls for betrayal to the rest of the family? Religion of any kind was meant to keep human race united as a thinking species with faith, not division when thinking differs. I am not speaking for the family who actually took on another religion. I just felt sad that religion could actually make blood ties seem less worthy.

Taoism's foremost rule of the thumb would be fillial piety. I am very fortunate to be in a family that wholly supports it and carries it out. What I always remember is that the choiceiest piece of morsel would always be for the elders while the young eats the last, picking on the bones. But we were happy because we did not mind as we were a family. I am really glad that family ties are that strong. I thought it was because of the religion we had that strongly promoted it. I love my family.

Ok that was a whole big digression. In the end, I did not know what my point was. Heck! I expected many of you to have actually ignored it and scrolled right down. Its ok. The above was just my ranting outlet.

*****
Now I am about to show you one of the most horrible pictures I had ever witness in the whole of my 19 years. The photo really scared the shit out of me the first time I look at it, after which I burst of laughing. I am really mentally disturbed right now. Haha. Are you ready?

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He is my boyfriend.

*gasps of horror, with kaiqi hyperventilating*

No la..of course NOT. This guy is kaiqi's classmate.I just thought he looked....funny. Can you imagine he is a aerospace student? He could be the one designing the plane you take to Hongkong Disneyland 10 years down the road. He look just like a typical hokkien ah beng working as a runner for loanshark. How could he be an engineer???

Karma,karma. I know I know. But I cannot resist remarking about his appearance. His hair!!! It looks like floating yellow colour sea anamone to me. I can even vaguely see a clown fish making its home there. Oh my oh my. I actually risk being in the state of being Petrified. He scares me as much as a Basilisk. Kaiqi tells me he is one bloke who declares that he is the most handsome guy in the whole course. Oh my oh my. I must meet him someday.

I know its like very very bad of me to make remarks like that. But I am no famous blogger like XiaXue who faces public outrage when he makes less than tactful posts. You people know that I am a mean person through and through. But I am game enough if anyone were to post about me and comment on my crooked teeth, my oily nose or my unkempt hair.

*yawn* This is really a long post. I am scooting off to bed already. Ciao.