smoke gets in ur eyes....

once again its the time for the living to remember the dead. during this time chinese of all religion and location will try to make their way to their dead relatives' tomb and pay respect.

there are those that will approach the event with lots of noise, burnt offering (joss sticks/hell notes/etc), food offering (chicken/roast meat/pau/etc) and drink offering (wine/tea/etc). in malaysia's rual areas families are known to set off firecrack prior leaving the tombstone, of cuz a round of asking of "4D" never harm the dead to 'bless' their living relatives.

there are also the most environment friendly and lower profile people that will approach the event with flowers and a simple visit to the tomb. they will tidy up the area and rid the area of weeds, rubbish and leaves. these people will either bow before their relatives or simply have a mini-gathering before the tomb- eating and drinking and talking, as if the dead was among them.

the burning of the offerings is really smoking up the air and the smell of it had cuz me to sneeze non-stop recently. i have nothing against the practise but well... hopefully someone can come up with a better idea to deal with the environmental waste and pollution. maybe an electronic offering thing where you entrust some authorised company to burn whatever you had ordered online to your dead relatives. gosh! it will be great cuz you can still pay respect when you are thousand of miles away from home! maybe they can even issue e-receipts! wow... now that will bear some meaning for those who had been burning mobile phone, computer, passport and even aeroplanes to their relatives! =p