›My Vietnamese Family Tradition
Jan 21 2006
About five times a year, my family has a tradition of visiting the graves of my grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother passed away when I was very little, and I miss her very much, though her death didn’t affect me as much as the death of my grandfather, who just passed away last school year. I came to school the morning of his death, and just couldn’t hold it all in.
Since then, I’ve gotten much better, and my family and I have the joy of visiting them a couple times every year. Usually, we get flowers first at a nearby flower shop and we place them in the compartment in front of her tombstone. We always bring incense and pray for a few minutes. Then we spread out all the incense among all the other tombstones so all the deceased can share a part of our prayers.
Occasionally, we bring colored paper that has golden squares painted on all the sheets. The gold is meant to symbolize some type of money or prize. We get these papers from the temple. Along with the papers, we bring a big bucket, and we burn these papers as a gift to the deceased.
My dad also has a shelf in his office that has photos of my grandmother, grandfather, and all of the siblings that my dad lost in the Vietnam War. We set fresh fruit on plates on the shelf as an offering to our family also. I think that it’s very important that my family stays close to our family spirits.
I’m sure that they’re all staying close to us. My parents try to pray every morning, but I don’t always get to it. My family has always been very family-oriented, and I think that this tradition is very important to all of us. Especially during the holidays, we try to go to the cemetery. In fact, my family and I are spending Christmas in , where my parents came from, all throughout the break. I think that this upcoming trip will really help me learn more about how my grandparents, my ancestors. About how they lived and what they did everyday.
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| Đi thăm mộ bà Nội với Ba, Mẹ chụp hình |
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chung ho | 23-Jan-06 at 6:44 am | Permalink
To Anh Thu:
I feel so happy to read your words . I want to thank you and your parents. Your thinking proves that you are very smart as your dad talk a lot about of
you . I will let Trang ; Tieng ; Vinh read this .
Thank again to Vu ; Thu ; Nguyen and your Parent .
Chung Ho