01.11.

All Soul’s Day
Swiped from limajulija.

In case you did not know, November 1st is All Souls' Day. It is a Catholic Qing Ming of sorts, where Catholics commemorate the departed. And so, each year, my family converges in Teluk Intan, Perak to visit my late-dad's grave at the St. Anthony Church Cemetery. We departed from KL at 6:30am, with little Cyan obviously grumpy from being disturbed from his usual long slumber. The kid was quite restless, climbing from front to back. at times like this, one wishes that Woodwards Gripe Water still contained alcohol. One swig for the baby, another for the poor mum. Stopping at Bidor, we had breakfast at the market and mum bought some flowers, fruits and roast pork. Had the worst-tasting Anson Chu Cheong Fun there..! Such a rip-off. My sister and brother-in-law declared that it tasted of roaches. LOL. But the char siew pao was sedapz. Only MYR1.20. Mana nak cari?!. In Teluk Intan, we also stopped at the wet market also to get whatever we missed. It rained during half of the journey, so the weather was nice and cool. From past experience, it was usually sweltering! The cemetery was nicely-maintained with weeds removed by the cemetery caretakers in preparation for the blessing of
the graves.



And so, we cleaned off the wax from last year and put the flowers and dad's favourite food (definitely not something Catholic, but mum does it for sentimental reasons... offerings can come in so many forms) on the grave. After a dozen years, the grave looks brand new. There are no cracks and the stones do not look weathered. Dad's face is clearly burned into the porcelein plaque. We all offer our prayers and little Cyan goes "Amen, Amen". so adorable, right? After that, we put mass offerings and went off to buy more local delicacies! Every year we stop at Sin Joo Heong to buy heong peanh, sa ki ma, kacang tumbuk and Sitiawan mee suah. And with each passing year, the woman at the counter looks older and older. I wonder if she thinks the same of me.



After that, we went to visit my mum's younger brother who has a flourishing business selling bread, mantou and fat kou at the local market. So as usual, he was busy at work. It's fun seeing how they knead the dough and steam the buns. Well, their youngest cousin is quite grown up now. Tall and kinda muscular thanks to his lion dance troupe thing. Kinda twinky this cousin of mine, but his attitude is a real put-off. What to do? In angsty phase of not wanting to talk. Can't even get a decent sentence out of his mouth. And there's a recent addition to the family-- a shih tzu. Very well-behaved. Hardly barks. Cyan had a ball with him. Had a simple lunch there and when we left, the car was full of bread and stuff!



The last stop was at my paternal aunt's place. At the wet market, we had heard from a distant relative that my third paternal cousin brother had separated from his wife and they had both moved back to the old house... So shocking. My 3 nephews are now living with their mum. We did not bring the matter up. And they did not say anything. The conversation just revolved on the settling of the legal matters that have arisen from the death of both of the family patriarchs. No awkwardness, but I guess it was just a silent acknowledgement. After saying our goodbyes, we went looking for Anson Chu Cheong Fun again. Unfortunately, the famous shop was closed on a Saturday afternoon. Sienz. Giving up, we headed for home. For dinner we stopped at Restoran Yu Mi, smack dab beside the paddy fields at Sekinchan. Great food-- we ordered chilli steamed fish, sweet and sour crabs, stewed pork with yam and stir-fried cabbage. It rained again on the way back and by the time we reached, it was already 9pm.

Until next year....