And today met the china relatives here in sg. Cousins from the countryside. We've talked abt it among ourselves many times. How we sneaked out to climb the mountains, how we play with the fire crackers and how we cross the rivers to get the sugar canes. How i was slapped by the buffalo's tail, how we watched a grasshopper being drowned in the shit pond and how we chased the ducks. And now we have the language barriers. Their hokkien is v different from ours. I cant quite understand. Their mandarin isnt quite comprehensible too. So i can only try my best. With blabbering.
Started since morning 9am. A buddhist ritual. Whole day with a few breaks in betw. No wonder the 方丈 says this is an uncommon practice now cos it 不仅耗财力 业耗体力. well already warned us at the start. Had done shorter ones few yrs back. 20 plus of the living ones with the 5 monks chanted for the 6 who had passed on. Thick book. Hope to do them some good. They r really fast, i m alr speed reading, n can still lose them at times. Chinese language is really amazingly written tho i only understand 30% of it.
The 2nd book cant catch at all. Is it even chinese? Some are. Other pages contain weird characters like cavemen drawings. Cant read. My bro says it's sunscript. Hmm. But there are some hand gestures. The hand signs which buddha used i think. Anyhow the monk put on the headdress, looks exactly like 唐僧 in 西游记。from flipping thru, it is the 地藏王 . all the chanting ended at abt 830pm then were really quite amused by the throwing of buns cos they roll everywhere. Were trying hard to control until my cousin started it all. Hope we arent too disrespectful.
Then piggy back my little cousin to a field where we watched the house being burnt. I sincerely hope this all reach those we'd prayed for. 930pm. the chantings are still ringing in my ear.
