~ September ~

Ch’ung Yeung

Ch'ung Yeung is one of the annual family remembrance days. Special offerings are placed before the ancestors on the family shrines at home and there is a family dinner. In the New Territories, the male members from large family group spend several days visiting the graves of all their founding ancestors, cleaning gravestones, making offerings, and kneeling together to pay their respects. Then, they will sit down near the graves and share the sacramental food. The clan ancestors lived long ago, their significance is no longer personal but symbolic. Because the original forebear from whom all present are directly descended, they focus of their loyalty to the past and to each other. A story tells how a scholar - Woon King was warned one day of an impending disaster. He took care to heed the warning and hastened with his family to high place in the hills, bringing food and a jug of chrysanthemum wine. They found upon returning home, all their cattle and poultry lying dead and duly gave thanks for their escape. The picnics include "ko" - a pun on the word for top (ko) as a sign of hope that eating such a cake will gain promotion to the top.

Remembrance of Koon Yam

Koo, Yam, is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. She is popular that her image is as often seen in Taoist temples as in Buddhist temples. All three dates for commermorating her are remember, her birthday on the 19th of the Second Moon, the day of her enlightenment on the 19th of the Sixth Moon and the day of her death on the 19th of the Ninth Moon.

January	May	September
February	June	October
March	July	November
April	August	December

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