Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Bai Tian Gong

Sunday was the 8th Day of CNY, Tian Gong's Birthday. As a tradition, family would pay their respect to Tian Gong at 12am sharp to wish for Tian Gong's protection over the family. It used to be an elaborated affair with 5 types of candies, 5 types of cakes, 5 types of fruits & 5 types of meat as offerings, then the family will have something hot & soupy (mee suang or steamboat) for supper to celebrate Tian Gong's birthday! But with modernization & nucleus family within a household, everything's been very much simplified. Some even just pray in the temple. For my dad, it's still at home at 12am sharp, all dressed up, but with a much simplier set offerings.

Well, SIMPLE is NOT the word to describe the way Dar's folks' way of celebrating Tian Gong's birthday! Besides mee suang, they also had a pair of bamboos, paper dolls for each & everyone pf the family, special pineapple specially for praying to Tian Gong, Dar's dad even play chanting songs on his cassette recorder!!! It was such a colourful & interesting sight!


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always inspired by you, your views and way of thinking, again, appreciate for this nice post.

- Murk

Knotty Bicsie said...

I'm flattered, Murk! This blog been sleeping for a long time actually :P I'm not exactly a full-time housewife anymore. I'm running a home-based crafting business, Knotty Bicsie. Do check out our blog http://www.knottybicsie.blogspot.com :)