For breakfast dad bought lobogao with egg, and the sauce was sweet chilli with jianyougao. Pretty nice!! We departed around 8am to go to the memorial/altar room early, because 二叔 needed to line up for the parking lot.
I started to flip some lotuses as someone folded and assembled a lot last night.
It's hard gettng it to look pretty. I accidentally tore 2.... right at the last row of petals too. 三叔 brought in a bag of lotus petals (unassembled) and yuanbao folded by Wenwen or Weiwei jiejie.
For today, everone wore a full armband of filial 孝 on their right arm. Natural jute colour for the sons (uncles and aunties), and yellow for the grandkids. Remember to take it off if you need to toilet.
Today we do a er-chi, san-chi, wu-chi prayer mantra for Grandma. Traditionally you would do one each every 7 days, from 1 to 7, until the 49th day, but dad and uncles chose to do a condensed version so it's not so much work for everyone. The first session (2chi), was for the sons. Second sessions (3-chi) was for the daughters (in law). The third session (5chi) was for the grandkids.
They asked us to stamp our thumb print on the baodai bags over our names. They packed some of grandma's favourite? clothes inside.
I felt like grandma was here during the sessions. I felt her potrait was "deeper" than usual and looking at us. They gave us the mantra books and it had bopomo inside so I could sing along somewhat.
Having so many people packed into a small room, and the weather so hot, the CO2 must have been high. I got so sleepy. I also got teary at places too...
Almost everyone came today. Except for my bro Alan, and cousin Joy. I also met 表姨媽 who was grandma's older sister's daughter.
For lunch I went out for a wee walk around. It was HOT and sweat kept pooling in my mask. My skin feels so dry and wet at the same time. It prickles when I moisturise it... and looking red.
I went around a guozhai (I assume) next to 一心市場. I also saw a Fire Station.
I also walked past an old dorm? or complex of some sort that counts as a Juanchun. I remember dad would always drive past this building when we went to visit 奶奶 back when we still had our own house here.
Lots of old buildings around this area. Kinda comforting.
The building doesn't have a 4th floor. I confirmed it wasn't just the elevator since I used the stairs.
I flipped some more lotuses after the walk.
After lunch break we completed the last 2 mantra sets. During the second mantra set, 表姨媽 threw the coins, but was unable to get an agreement. Then the prayer lead/host asked mum to do it, but because she can't hear well she didn't say the instructions to grandma, and was also unable to get an agreement. So the coordnator came in and explained again, and finally got an agreement from the toss.
The third one went smoothly like the first.
I felt like grandma was looking at us.
At the end they asked grandma to follow the incense and the paper with stuff written on it, that was used during the sessions, stuck in a block of paper money (incense also stuck in it), held by cousin (3rd uncle's son, as the eldest grandson representative) to take to the big burner. All the grandkids were supposed to go, but I think tradition dictates only the males. Sad. I wanted to burn some for grandma.
We burnt 18 paper lotuses, 100 yuanbao, her clothes in the baodai, paper money, and I think something else. It was around 3:40pm ish at this time.
After they left I felt grandma wasn't there anymore. And when the grandkids came back I felt grandma hasn't returned yet. I think it's because she's still collecting our offering with buddha as it's still burning. I continued to do some more folding, and 五嬸 and 賢安 helped to fold and flip some more. After a wee bit I looked at grandma's potrait and felt she was back.
Then it wasn't long until we had to leave, around 4pm.
Wenwen or Weiwei jiejie brought milk tea for everyone and offered me. I took a traditional pearl milk tea. It had so much pearl...
二叔 went around to get the car. And then we had to leave. We got into the elevator and almost forgot to tell 奶奶 we are leaving.
I took a pad of paper back to fold more lotuses.
We also had to drop off 表姨媽 at her relative's house. I got to see a different partof Taichung I normally don't. There's a lot of empty fields here, some had buildings built on it. A lot of new multistorey buildings were built around the place. I think they must have been Juanchun and farmland beforehand. See You Again Map did indicate there was one around the area, about 1000 households, so it must have been a really big area. It was around Chongede 18th road.
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Sad how I won't be able to access Timeline on desktop anymore and grab a screenshot to insert...
We got a bit lost but found our way there. |
Then 二叔 dropped us off at home and Mum and I went to buy dinner at 一心素食. We got back to the front door around 6:10pm but had no key so had to wait for dad to come home (got a ride on 四叔's motorbike). In the meantime I popped over to the 7-11 on the corner and had a look at their Sanrio collab goods I could see from the window when I passed by this morning. I bought a Cinnamonroll drink bag (could also be lunch) for a friend who lives in America. She likes Cinnamonroll. There wasn't much merch with Cinnamonroll on it so I tried to buy something that could be used as a bag for a lolita coord.
Dad came back around 6:30pm, and we went upstairs, home, had dinner. I started folding lotus petals only to realise the paper I got given was for yuanbao instead (they are printed different). So I guess I'm folding yuanbao instead (after I folded 16 petals to assemble 1 lotus). Dad made tea and I managed to fold 90 yuanbao, taking a shower in the middle. It was 10:30pm when I got to 90, and I still had to blog, so I guess I'll make up the rest to get to 100 tomorrow after the last prayer session.
As usual, spray and pray and Blis k12... and hope no one is asymptomatic or sick. Typhoon is also on the way, but I'm hoping it won't affect us that much. Buddha will organise. Amitofou.
