Tuesday, August 28, 2012

A day at my Brother's house

During the weekend, the whole family gathered at my brother's house to pray to our late parents for the seventh month of the year also known as Zhong Yuan Jie or Mid Year Festival or the Hungry Ghost Festival or the feast for the wandering soul. Normally prayers will be held on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month but as 15th day of the seventh lunar month falls on a weekday and most will be working so majority of chinese will celebrate the day praying to their deceased close family members earlier on weekend before the 15th day.

Most might think Ghost Festival sounds eerie but it is actually a joyous affair where the whole family gathered together to pray to our ancestors. I saw this blogwhich is very interesting describing the ghost festival.

As my brother is taoist, food were offered to our late parents as part of the prayers. There were so much yummy food that of course after prayers, we tucked into them and really have a good time. The above photo were the ingredients for making popiah (a kind of not deep fried spring roll), they were cooked by my eldest sister.

We just had to put all the ingredients onto the popiah skin and rolled them up and eat it, very healthy better than the deep fried spring roll.

The above photo of potato patties or begedil prepared and cooked by my sister's indonesian domestic helper. Yummy.

Assorted nonya kueh (cakes)- some in durian flavour - so yummy.

We had other fruits too but I liked these organic strawberries, they were so sweet. At this time, I really drools thinking of the food we ate during the weekend, hahaha.

And what best was the sight of these beautiful keng hua or epiphyllum flowers that grows from the plants in my brother's house. There were about six flowers on one plant and another two blooms on another plant. Wow what a wonderful day it was but too bad none wanted to stay till midnight to take photo of the full bloom of the flowers...lol. These flowers only bloom for a short while at midnight.

For photos on other parts of the world, please visit Our World Tuesday Meme. Thanks to the team of Our World for giving us the opportunity to share my world with the rest of the world.

6 comments:

Lara Neusiedler @ Uproad said...

this is interesting, since also in the Christian Orthodox tradition food is given for the souls of the departed ones. with the slight touch of Greek tragedy which cannot miss from Eastern Europe, of course :))))

lotusleaf said...

Such an interesting post! I would love to eat popaiah.

eileeninmd said...

Sounds like a lovely family get together. And the food all looks so yummy. Your brothers flowers are beautiful. Thanks for sharing your world.

Danielle said...

I loved reading about this custom and learning about all those foods. I believe it is a wonderful thing to do and more cultures should spend time in honoring their ancestors in such a way. Thank you so much for sharing.

Fun60 said...

What a wonderful way to remember those we have lost.

Marleen said...

Very interesting to read your story and watch the pictures. Thanks for sharing!