During this period their ancestor’s spirits revisit their homes - Por Tong (the God of the Devils) opens the gates to the spirit world for this. They believe that these spirits will stay on the earth for one month and we give gifts and offerings for their stay.
A prominent feature of this celebration was the number of red turtle shaped cakes – Ang Koo.
The tiny shrine was hidden down a back street - we had to ask the driver Mardchahood to come to find it for us – it was amazing. We were welcomed like old friends into the shrine and we met two lovely Thai / Chinese people who told us what to do.
We took the turtle into the shrine and purchased 18 joss sticks and 4 candles all carefully wrapped together with paper.
We lit 2 candles at the front of the shrine from a perpetual flame.
We lit the joss sticks and placed 3 of them at the front of the shrine.
We paid our respects to the Buddah before entering, on our knees and bowing 3 times.
We lit the joss sticks, placed 3 of them at the front and entered the shrine.
We were led to a very small corridor behind the shrine where we were in a tiny corridor with tiny ornate Chinese figures – similar to those at the Chinese Temple that I had previously visited with the guest. In here there were 5 places to put 3 joss sticks in. We moved carefully through here and back to the front.
We were then led to a small ceremonial stove outside where we undid the roll of papers The papers were held together with a smaller bit of tissue paper and I can find no information as to why it is like this. Watch this space.
We lit the tissue paper from a perpetual flame and threw it into the oven.
One by one we then lit the pieces of paper from the flame in the oven – this was to create a flame to tell the spirits that we have honored them!
We were then told to stay because there was some Thai Dancing in a few minutes – we waited 2 minutes and the there was some Thai dancing – this was a truly amazing and wonderful experience for us all.
Click here to see my mp4.
