先人在天國

第一天回到香港, 就是買了這些....雪糕米糍 because 平時 in Vancouver it's too expensive, the 溢力多 because that will help me digest all the food i eat and the chips because 在 Wellcome 買夠$50就可以換一個印花...不知道有幾多個印花就可以換一個行李 and i was off 50$ by a bit.


前一天跟婆婆一起去了一個叫"西方峙" 和 "圓 yuan 學院" 的地方 (on top of a hill in tseun wan)，去看我已經死了六年的公公和二姑婆的靈位。這些美麗的花就是買給他們的 (they didn't have real purple so I settled with pink). 在這些佛教的廟宇裏面，有很多的觀音菩薩 (why am i stating the obvious) and other types of Buddhas that i don't even know who's who. Because it is Chinese New Years, there were lots of people crowding around statues of worship and visiting these "scribes" that could write some slips of paper to help them if they are 犯太歲 (who is 太歲 anyways?)

因爲靈位衆多，找自己親人的靈位也不是一件容易的事. The whole place is like a maze with different rooms. Inside each room are thousands of plaques with a photo of someone (sometimes more than one person i.e. husband and wife), their name, their dates of birth and death, their 鄉下 and sometimes, the family that they have left behind. Occasionally, you will find one plaque with a photo and right beside it there's another spot for someone but instead of a photo, there's a red slip of paper with some chinese characters on it. My grandma said that spot is reserved for the spouse of the dead fellow if he/she was still alive.

其實去看他們的靈位也不知道該做什麽。　It doesn't seem appropriate to bow or to talk to them since, obviously they can't hear me anyways. At the same time, standing in front of the plaque and not doing anything seemed disrespectful and against the more Chinese-y sense of the thing. Sometimes the women who work there would ask if we need to buy some incense or what not and my 婆婆 would answer them “耶穌　耶穌" and the women would understand and back off. 其實我兩位長輩都是臨死之前接受了基督, 所以我知道 even though their "earthly remains" are trapped inside this Buddhist temple surrounded by idols and incense burning, to them, it wouldn't matter 因爲他們已經有了永生的鑰匙. As for me, I'll see them both in heaven.

Currently listening (a number of things): 1. some next door neighbour kid playing a scale on his/her clarinet 2. mahjong coming from downstairs and 3. distant buzz of cars