Cheng Beng is here again

Come this Sunday and many Chinese people will be visiting graves of their loved ones for praying and cleaning up the mess. This festival is known as Cheng Beng in Hokkien. It usually falls on the 4th or 5th of April depending on whether the 12th moon of the last year has 29 days or 30 days. If it is the former, then Cheng Beng will fall on the 4th of April. If the 12th moon has 30 days such as this year, then it falls on the 5th of April. For the sake of convenience, Saturdays and Sundays are preferred.

As is the practice, people will go to clean up the graves 10 days before and after Cheng Beng. For this year the Chinese will start doing so from 26 March to 14 April. F

Cheng Beng Festival is a show of respect for the dead and ancestors. Once a year, the Chinese will visit the graves of the dead to show respect to them. Clearing the grass that grew on the grave annually will prevent the graves from turning into a mass of grassland.

I will be going with my sister to my father's grave tomorrow morning to show respect to my father had brought me up and gave me education.