All Soul's Day...
1st November is All Soul's day...in the Philippines, this means it is time to go to the cemeteries and pay your respects to the dead....as a consequence the papers here have been full of articles about ghosts and famous graves. Here's one of the better articles that I read, originally written in 2001...from Manuel L. Quezon III
The city itself was a ghost town yesterday...(unfortunately all descriptions of the state of Manila yesterday had puns in them....dead and ghostly were just two of the words that cropped up)...Shopping Malls were closed - completely, roads were empty, jeepneys were empty, restaurants were either closed or empty...an ideal time to see Manila, unfortunately I was working but my normally speedy ride home was almost supersonic! The only places that were busy were the cemeteries and the roads leading to them. My colleagues told me that for some of them they sat in traffic for about three hours waiting to get to the cemetery.
The concept of visiting the graves and cleaning them up is not really new to people who have spent any time in Asia - in Hong Kong we have Ching Ming which follows the same concept. As a consequence when my colleagues were telling me about what they were doing at the graveside I was only really half listening..cleaning the grave, paying respects, eating a meal...heard it all before....the one line that brought me up short....
"Well this year was better than last because the karaoke was banned"
Apparently alongside the karaoke ban, there was also a ban on alcohol and weapons being taken into the cemeteries...
Karaoke at a cemetery....it's enough to make you turn in your grave...
The city itself was a ghost town yesterday...(unfortunately all descriptions of the state of Manila yesterday had puns in them....dead and ghostly were just two of the words that cropped up)...Shopping Malls were closed - completely, roads were empty, jeepneys were empty, restaurants were either closed or empty...an ideal time to see Manila, unfortunately I was working but my normally speedy ride home was almost supersonic! The only places that were busy were the cemeteries and the roads leading to them. My colleagues told me that for some of them they sat in traffic for about three hours waiting to get to the cemetery.
The concept of visiting the graves and cleaning them up is not really new to people who have spent any time in Asia - in Hong Kong we have Ching Ming which follows the same concept. As a consequence when my colleagues were telling me about what they were doing at the graveside I was only really half listening..cleaning the grave, paying respects, eating a meal...heard it all before....the one line that brought me up short....
"Well this year was better than last because the karaoke was banned"
Apparently alongside the karaoke ban, there was also a ban on alcohol and weapons being taken into the cemeteries...
Karaoke at a cemetery....it's enough to make you turn in your grave...
posted by Madame Chiang at 9:42 am
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