My trip to Penang coincided with my mother’s anniversary.
So on that morning my sister woke up early to cook some food to take along with us. She cooked assam prawns or tamarind prawns.
We packed them and drove over to the mainland crossing the famous Penang Bridge. Then we made our way to my youngest brother’s house. There we met up with some other members of the family, who contributed to the food as well. It was sort of a family reunion, but not all the brothers and sisters were there due to work commitments.
In the Chinese culture where I come from, the remembrance prayer is a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism. The Taoism part is the filial piety part that is expected from the children. Children are expected to respect their parents and elders. The Buddhism part is the offering of prayers and food and the traditions of having a send off prayer and ceremony during the funeral ( this was done some time ago when my mum passed away). This is based on pre-lotus sutra teachings. It also involved the offering of joss sticks and joss paper representing gold and silver.
Being a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, I went along with the ceremony and procedure as a sign of respect. So I did my prayers with the joss sticks, and then placed the joss sticks in the ‘ jar’. When all have done the praying, we waited for mum to ‘finish’ her meal. This was done by dropping a pair of kidney shaped wooden blocks about 8cm by 4cm. If the blocks are not available, a pair of coins will do.
Now, to check whether mum had finished her food, the coins would be tossed in the air after 3 respectful bows. If he blocks fell and ended up on different faces, or if the coins showed both head and tail, then the meal is done. If the answer is not, then you are allowed to repeat the procedure 3 times. If in any of the 3 times there is a both head or tail, then the meal has been satisfactorily consumed. If there are no head or tail combination after the 3 throws, then it means that she has not finished eating
So we would leave more time before trying again.
After a few more minutes we tried again and we got the ‘head and tail’ sign. So this meant we can burn all the papers and joss sticks. The burning of the offerings signifies that we have sent her gold and silver for her use in the after life.
The table load of food will be then consumed by us. The table usually creaks under the amount of food that we offer. What food do we offer? We offer food my mum loved.
This means chicken, meat. curry, fried noodles, rice, prawn. kuehs (local cakes) fish, lor bak, meat and vegetable buns, soups, stir fry vegetables, otak- otak, and most importantly all types of sambals and chillie sauces. On top of that, we also offer fruits like apples and water melons and oranges. Since this is the beginning of the fruit season (fruits here means seasonal fruits like durian, rambutan, mangosteen, langsat, duku, which seems to come on one after another) there were also rambutans and mangosteens.
(At this point of writing, it is still early in the durian season. So the price is still a bit steep. Although rambutans and mangosteen are available, the price is still exorbitant. To really enjoy these fruits at their best, the strategy is to wait a bit longer and eat as much as possible at the peak of the season when the price is right.)
Note:
As a practitioner Nichiren Buddhism (under the banner of Soka Gakkai) we recite portions of the Lotus Sutra and remember our deceased relatives and loved ones twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. This is a daily act of filial piety.
