The public is invited to a Ch’ing Ming ceremony at the Kapa‘a Chinese Cemetery at 11 a.m. April 28, officiated by Michael Ching of Hanalei. August Yee of Honolulu said one of the most important rituals which takes place at
The public is invited to a Ch’ing Ming ceremony at the Kapa‘a Chinese Cemetery at 11 a.m. April 28, officiated by Michael Ching of Hanalei.
August Yee of Honolulu said one of the most important rituals which takes place at the Chinese cemetery is Ch’ing Ming, a festival which occurs annually starting April 4 or April 5 during a leap year. Ch’ing Ming traditionally starts 165 days following the winter solstice.
Ch’ing Ming is a month-long celebration and is one of three traditional Chinese ceremonies which honor the dead.
The memorial service is called Chung Mung, or Bali San, to the Chinese from the Chungshan district, while others know it as Sau Mull, or the “sweeping of the tomb,” Yee said in describing aspects of the Manoa Chinese Cemetery on O‘ahu.
During the month-long ceremony, grave sites are tidied, tombstones are cleaned and made presentable, and families gather to honor their dead relatives.
“The Chinese have much respect for and strongly revere their ancestors,” Yee said in a letter. “One honors the dead during Ch’ing Ming.”
On opening day, a special and elaborate offering table is set up and draped with a bright red tablecloth.
A banquet consisting of whole roast pig and five main courses is set before the Grave of the Tai-Ju, or Great Ancestor, the five main courses ceremoniously placed along the roast pig.
These dishes include pan-fried shrimp, oyster stewed with fried tofu, red stewed pork, black mushrooms and bamboo shoots, boiled chicken and roast duck. Pyramids of red and black sugar buns are placed near the roast pig along with pyramids of oranges and apples.
Vegetarian offerings include deep-fried long rice, bean curd strips and red and white starch strips, collectively known as jai.
Five cups of tea, five cups of whiskey, five bowls of rice and five pairs of chopsticks are neatly arranged in front of the five main dishes, the number five being significant because it represents the five qualities of benevolence, purity, prosperity, wisdom and truth.
Red candles and large and small incense sticks are lit. On the ground to the right and above the headstone, a plate containing a strip of plain boiled pork, fried tofu and duck eggs is placed for San Ga, the groundskeeper, or the servant of the ancestor.
Family visits to relatives’ grave sites are like having a picnic, reunion and religious rite all rolled into one, said Robert Wong, the superintendent of the Manoa Chinese Cemetery, a 27-acre site which is the oldest and largest Chinese cemetery in Hawai‘i.
“Celebrating Ch’ing Ming by the Chinese can be compared to the observance of Memorial Day in America, festivities of Obon by the Japanese and the traditions of el Dia de los Muertos by the Mexicans,” Yee said.
The Kapa‘a Chinese Cemetery restoration work was started in May 2007 and, following five years of hard work, which included cutting and removing 1,200 haole koa trees, placing more than 140 tombstones upright and planting grass, the cemetery is a source of pride, Yee said.
Tin-Yuke and Wai Jane Char compiled the information in “Chinese Historic Sites and Pioneer Families,” a book published in 1979 by the Hawai‘i Chinese History Center.
It describes the Kapa‘a cemetery as the Bak Fook Tong Society Cemetery when James W. Pratt, then commissioner of public lands in Hawai‘i, received a petition from the Kapa‘a Bak Fook Tong Burial and Cemetery Association to create the Kapa‘a cemetery in the early 1900s.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
