Sunday, April 3, 2011

Buffetting : Embracing Tradition 3




I never did made any posts on Cheng Beng(清明), the pronunciation in English due to how Hokkien derives the words back in Sg Petani.

As for the festival in English, there's 3 version:

1-Qing Ming festival. As easy as its made.
2-Tomb Sweeping day. Well, because that's the main activity during the whole process.
3-Pure Brightness Festival. I have no idea how bright things can be, when the old Chinese poems has stated this:


清明时节雨纷纷


路上行人欲断魂


借问酒家何处有


牧童遥指杏花村
Thanks to the rain, I got to see rainbow!(jakun sial)

Direct translation available from Wikipedia.

Anyway, this year's CB(Cheng Beng, no other derivations) was indeed as denoted from the old poem. The sky was rather dark, and there was rain for just a few minutes while we were dealing with the very 1st ancestor of Teoh who set the foundation in Malaysia.

From where I heard, 张乌翻(Teoh Wu Fan, i think) had plenty of children. The problem I was thinking was, why are we the only ones doing the tomb sweeping?

The next in line was 张国华(Teoh Kok Wah), who was a teacher, an interpreter and also a person who had ambidexterity(able to to write with both hands). He had only one boy, my grand father and the others were all females. That explained why we were the only ones doing the tomb sweeping so far.

And my grandfather was 张志正(Teoh Zhi Zhen), also named as 张阿狗(Teoh Ah Dog). Why dog? No idea. Those days nicknaming after animals were cool I guess. Well, he wasn't a great man to begin with. He drunk and smoke, and ended up with cardiac infarction. The Teoh family,(well at least mine) was then prohibited to live with lifestyle including tobaccos and alcohol. I personally love alcohol, but its either shandy or wine, others would probably turn me off. As for smoking, only people who are ignorant enough of their health and people around them can live with that. I can't.

Anyway back to the family history. So I'm like the 5th generation in Malaysia now, pretty long isn't it? Normal Chinese family goes up to average of 3 or 4, while mine hit 5.

Well, my family is pretty much the average one. Not really big shot or what ever. But I'm proud that my family is still free from scandals or crimes , plus my dad was like the police officer so you get the drill.

So lets get to the women of the family!

I was so proud because the famous lady from Chinese literature,秋香 from the"唐伯虎点秋香" was married to my greatX2 grand pa! Proof?
I didn't lie~

Not much history. Same goes to the next in line 吴亚朱。Guess the ladies are always kept in the kitchen back then.

Next come to my grandmother, still living and kicking. Her surname is definitely 谢(Cheah) but I forgot the rest. She came from a really dark childhood though. Parents passed away early, had to work for the grandma's sister after her grandma passed away, pretty much the maid around the house. In the end, got married to my grandpa.

She's okay, but there are plenty of family drama stirred up and heard when I hit adulthood which made me think twice about her. There ain't no doubt on how she love us, and I'm glad to say I'm one of those who got pampered around her, but pretty much all the cousins get pampered around.

Anyway, the fact is there were that many dramas, not cope to be scandals yet, but they are too long to be posted her. I'll save it for some other time.

Last but not least, camwhoring when things get boring around the place.
Cute no? Okay I will try again when i got my abs XD
Wild Sex. Got this while I was getting an extra long stick to allow more air to enter the burning boxes of golds for the deceased.

Their crabs were die for! Filled with eggs! And the family who ran it was really nice too! We had to take the crabs because we went across 2 towns and 3 restaurants to get CRABS!!!

Despo I know, but still. CRABS.

Till next post

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