Finding my roots

How many Singaporeans know their great grandfather? In 21st century singapore,
not many I believe.

Up til today I was one of them. But today I accompanied my father to pay respect to his grandfather and grandmother. This is part of the Chinese tradition - 掃墓. During the 清明 (Qing Ming) period, descendants of the deceased would go pay respect to them at the cemetry.

In Singapore, due to land scarcity, there is only one cemetry that is still open for burials. What remains are old private burial grounds the Government has yet to acquisite. Nowaday when you die in Singapore, most of the time you get cremated. My grandfather was cremated and I remembered I went to pay my respect to him at 光明山 when I was still a kid. So it was a novelty for me to visit a burial ground for praying. And I always wanted to find out more about my great-grandfather, to pay respect to him, before the burial ground ceased to exist. I have a hunch that will happen in the future.

My great-grandparent's tombs were located at an old burial site along Woodland Road, somewhere opposite Sungei Kadut Avenue. It had a small temple where the cemetry care taker resides. We went to find my great grandfather's tombstone as it was located near to the entrance. My father took a bit of memory searching before he found it. It was next to a smaller tombstone, he said. It turns out to be a child tomb.

I saw that while some of the tombs were covered with weeds and grasses, my great-grandfather's was decently kept and the engrave were newly painted - all thanks to the caretaker whom my father paid a small amount of money.

I looked at my great-grandfather's tombstone engrave with mixed feeling. His name was 陈亚买. It was so distant, yet its related to me. There were other two names engraved on his left and right. They were his first wife's in China and second wife from Singapore. Apparently, elder great-grandma died in China, according to my father. My great-grandfather came from the Guangdong province (廣東省普寧，潮汕人）. My guess is he got married there but came to Singapore to earn a living as life was harder back then in Mainland China.

After finishing paying respect to my great-grandfather, we ventured further in to find my (second) great-grandmother's tomb. Along the way, I saw tombstone of various sizes, some are indication of how wealthy the person was. Some were totally not maintained at all and the engraves were faded to a state beyond recognition.

We took a bit of time to search before my father found my great-grandma's tombstone and I couldn't help but notice the exact same engrave on the tombstome! If my father didn't tell me, I wouldn't know which one is which.

After we were done, my father went to find the old lady who took care of the graveyard. She was in her eighties but she still recognise my dad. My father thank her for giving us direction to the second tombstone and paid her the money for taking care of them.

As we left the burial site, I told myself I would come back again next year.