Meiling - just as many others of my colleagues, Dad, and probably more among my acquaintances have all gone down south for the major event, whilst I, alone, having my usual bowl of oatmeal for brunch, dressing sloppy and feeling sluggish.
So much for a tomb sweeping day...
The last time as I recalled to have gone to an occasion alike traced at least 15 years back. Jiayi (where my folks rooted) used to be my cognitive tiny world's only perceivable end/paradise. The north-to-south journey took up a hell of 3.5 hours drive to finish (small trunk vs. big world). After the hard trudge (though the whole time I did not even leave the back seat to P) I sobered up at the sight of a familiar interchange (yes this is IT!) singing 「I'm In Heaven.」 (Yes of course I did not know the song at such an early stage of my life, but trust me on this that I WOULD have sung it if I had known it.) And the vacation began thereafter.
Out the windowpane through my binocular (yes I enjoy peeping) seen a mountain of people (again, this is an expression; I mean there are people, dotting here and there) over the slope covered with oriental-styled tombs. Year after another the 5th of April remains the day always possessing an invisible power to beckon descendants of the buried ones to come back, wherever they reside. Smoke curls upwards into the air, some veiling the gravestones, scenting the hillside with an ambiance of something far-gone and would never return. This burial ground will soon be replaced by a product of modern civilisation of the Taipei metropolis, probably a compound of a sports ground and a park. I doubt if I would miss the old cemetery.
*The occident way of tombstone making would have the upper-class letters "R.I.P." carved across. Although commonly known as the abbreviation for "Rest In Peace," they are from Latin, "Requiescat/Requiescant In Pace," to be accurate.
*A supernatural occurrence on a festival for the supernatural:
I keep my Collins Cobuild Edition at the foot of my bookcase these days for easy access. I would leave it open at the page I look up the last vocabulary. A minute before starting this blog entry, I flipped the dictionary to double-check another word that I now cannot think of what. The first word flashed in sight was R.I.P. I tried several times repeating the shut-and-open process around the R section of the dictionary. Apparently it does not work for a second time.
原生土壤 (3)