music: Black Velvet--Melissa Etheridge
Finally its over. After 5 days of breathing incense choked air, pouring wine on the floor, eating horribly fattening food (curry, loads of pork with the fat on, loads of sweets, peanuts, coffee), its over.
Grief for the dead is a selfish emotion. Don't you think so? You cry because YOU are sad to lose them, because YOU have lost someone special, because YOU can't bear to lose them... I didn't cry for grandma. I cried because I could feel the pain of the rest of my relatives, Dad and grandad included. I guess that's a more justified reason for me, I wasn't
that close to my grandma (paternal), although much closer than I had been with my late maternal grandfather, whom I saw once a year.
I couldn't mourn properly because of all the noise. There was this band playing chinese oldies, and they were 'fighting' with the priest's chanting and his clashing of the cymbals and ringing of his bell. We had this whole 'send-off' parade band and even the van which carried the coffin had this built-in speaker which played 'Namoamitabha' in sync with our footsteps. Taoism focuses alot on the spectacular, if I'm not saying something which isn't already obvious.
We burnt a house for grandma. A really intricately designed (though a little gaudy) paper mansion, with servants, heaps and heaps of money included. Irony was that we had to burn it in a Dumpster. The scene was really like the one you see in 'The Maid' (the trailer that is, I don't have the guts to watch scary movies), huge fire blazing, ashes shooting up into the night sky... except we didn't have white-faced people dancing la.
The crematorium. Sigh. Second time there, I
really didn't need a reminder of the previous death. Headed to a
magnificent temple right beside RJ, I was contemplating which one looked grander, the temple or RJ. Both looked too beautiful to be true. Ha, the temple had signboards pointing the direction to worship Guan Yin, Tua Peh Gong... a little incongruous.
Gonna go pick the ashes tomorrow.
After nights of bridge, tai tee, poker, mahjong (with fake money but not hell notes of course), I'm having a well-deserved break. Will watch a french movie which has been rotting in my room for more than half a year.