Ching Ming Festival.

Wednesday (04/04/2012)

a) Ching Ming Festival.
l Thekids
shared with me about the story behind Ching Ming.
l Chinese
people are around the world and they are celebrating Ching Ming Festival today.
Some a few weeks ago, some even later. Chinese believed that our ancestors must
be prayed so that they would be happy, peaceful and blessed us in return. That
explains why Chinese offer josssticks, payer paper, Paper Money Notes and even
paper houses and cars.
l Rei
said that her grandmother told her that the ancestors’ spirit would receive our
offerings.
l This
somehow led to the discussion of Heaven and Hell. We believe that good people
will go to heaven after life while the criminals would go to hell. The kids
immediately related to being good children will help us grow as good people!

b) Spring Roll or Popiah.
l Today,
everyone in school wrapped their own spring rolls and ate them. Our kids were
so happy that most of them ate 2 rolls. The ingredients were salad vegetable,
carrot, turnip, egg and popiah skin with some sauce.
* Later, we drew pictures as a recording of the activity.

c) Han Festival.
* Many years ago, there was a duke
called Duke Wen of Jin. He was the future Duke of
China. He was once attacked by his enemies. They managed to escape and
hid in a hut nearby the forest. Duke Wen and his armies were so hungry because
they had no food. Jie Zitui, one of
his armies cut some of his thigh to cook soup for Duke Wen. Duke Wen ate
hungrily but suddenly asked himself about the meat whereabout! Jie Zitui didn’t
want to tell about his thigh meat. Duke Wen saw Jie Zitui’s bleeding thigh. He
was so touched that he cried and promised to take good care of Jie Zitui for
the rest of his life. When Wen became duke, Jie resigned and stayed away from
him. Duke Wen rewarded the people who helped him in the decades, but for some
reason he forgot to reward Jie, who by then had moved into the forest with his
mother. Duke Wen went to the forest, but could not find Jie. Heeding
suggestions from his officials, Duke Wen ordered men to set the forest on fire
to force out Jie. However, Jie died in the fire. Feeling remorseful, Duke Wen
ordered three days without fire to honour Jie's memory. Thus, people were
ordered not to use fire for Han Festival, remembering Jie Zitui’s death. People
eat cold food such as Spring Roll. The next day, it’s suppose to be Ching Ming
Festival whereby people pay respect to their ancestors’ tombs. Duke Wen also
paid respect to Jie Zitui’s tomb.However, Chinese people have mixed the traditions and
most people have forgotten about Han festival. They just celebrate Ching Ming
Festival.