ChingMing

Today April 5 is ChingMing, the Chinese equivalent of All Souls Day. The Chinese pay respect to their  dearly departed during ChingMing (literally meaning clear green) by going to the cemetery to sweep and clean the tombs, light candles, burn incense, offer Sam Seng (three life forms), pray and ask for intervention from their ancestors. Since I am descended from Chinese forebears and married to Chinese family, I have ever since childhood and until now observed the celebration of ChingMing.

As a child, I looked forward to visiting the lone graveyard of my maternal grandfather buried in a remote Kakar area in Cotabato City. The graveyard stood by its lonesome on a hillside fronting one of Rio Grande Mindanao tributaries. As the story frequently told by my mother and Aunt Pilar.........my grandfather's body was hurriedly buried on a hillside during the Japanese war time. They had at first intended to bury him in the Chinese cemetery. With the help of some Muslims, they traveled by boat in darkness so as not to be noticed, but the boat traverse from Cocal to Kakar took awhile. Before they could reach the cemetery, the body was already decomposing and sunrise was soon approaching. They had no way of reaching the Chinese cemetery without being noticed by the Japanese soldiers. So they interred their beloved father Mr. Ngo Bon Kia in Kakar in Muslim tradition. To go there for ChingMing, my father was the only person who knew how to reach the site. He would drive us by truck to go through rough terrains. We had to get down at some point to walk through fields and woods. I knew we would soon be there as the trek began to descend. Half way one could see a lone cemented niche. Farther down was the river. For me, those days of going to my grandfather's graveyard was a picnic tradition. We siblings delighted in partaking of the food offerings. Somehow I learned a lot from my mother doing the ChingMing tradition. After 50 years though from his time of death, my grandfather bones were transferred to Manila. It was the time when Cotabato City started to become lawless and where nobody dared to visit the graveyard anymore. Rest in peace now, Angkong.