I was in Alor Setar over the weekend, visiting the graves of my in-laws. While I was there, I watched the Chinese rituals for the dead. Cleaning the grave, arranging food, burning incense, burning paper offerings, even paper Tigor Beer.
Then I remembered something a friend once told me, “Don’t need to visit dead people. Should visit them when they were alive.”
He is not wrong.
But he also missed the point.
We don’t do these things for the dead. We do it for the living.
The dead is dead. We cannot be so naive to think the burnt paper Tigor Beer will reach them. But we still burn it anyway.
Because it gives us comfort.
A place to put our memories, our guilt, our love, our gratitude.
It is our way of making sure we don’t forget.
Just like exit interviews, sometimes. 🥀
xoxoxo
