eg. u r a buddhist/taoist, so are your parents.
then some or a few of your cousins or maybe uncle aunties are
christians converts.
then ask u know, in the month of april, chinese custom dictates
that the descendants have to go to ancestor's tomb/urn to 'sweep
tomb' and offer food plus burn paper offerings.
then usually its amah or ah gong organize the event, then on that
day itself you and your extended family (uncle, auntie, cousins...)
gather together to go tomb sweeping for your great grandparents
tomb.
then hor, some of your cousins or uncle/auntie are christians
converts, so they choose not to turn up at all. or maybe they will
turn up but won;t do any pai pai, just look at everyone pai pai
burn josspaper etc.
Then your amah or ah gong got complain or kao peh kao boo, say now
young generation all convert to christian then after that don't
participate in the praying to ancestors or help to burn josspapers
or lay the color paper on the tomb mound?? Then they say like if
everyone in the family convert liao, then in future nobody will go
and tend to the ancestor's tomb during cheng beng n hungry ghost
festival. Then its like we will let down our ancestor and then will
result in bad karma or thunder god will strike or go to hell after
death etc... Then ancestors won't bless us anymore and further
generations will have bad luck blah blah. Then amah/ah gong also
say like our last time ancestors come to sg from china, have to
work very hard for a living here and faced many hardships, and
therefore the more reasons we have to remember them.
So how do u feel about your cousins or uncle/auntie who choose not
to attend at all? They pantang until don;t want to turn up. They
think that just because they convert to christian already, they
can't come to the tomb or columbarium. Its not like they have to
hold joss stick or burn offering or what. Just attend the event
only, just look only, maybe at the most give a bow to the ancestor
tomb. Then some of these people are also pantang such that they
won't eat the food offered to the dead.
