Sembahyang Kubur Tradition

Sembahyang kubur (Cheng Beng) is one of a special tradition of Tionghoa that has been known since the era of  Ming dynasty. Cheng Beng is an activity where people go to their own family graves, bring things that need to do some kind of ritual there at the certain day. It is a kind of respect to ancestors and as a moment for praying to child and grandchild for a better and happier life. Chen Beng usually does by Tionghoa which has a religious as Buddha, Taoisme, Khonghucu. It is done two times a year; at second month and seventh month in lunar calender. The main important  thing from this ritual is Xao Moh (cleaning grave).Usually, Tionghoa do the ritual at 4 in the morning. In addition, the things used are incenses, candle, tea, many kind of fruit such as, orange, pear, apple, grape, pineapple, and so on; cake, clothes and money made from paper. And the clothes and money made from paper, yellow paper, etc; will be burned at the end of the ritual.





History of Sembahyang kubur
One time, at the era of Ming Dynasty, there was a child named Cu Guan Ciong which come from poor family. To take care and teach him,  his parents asked for help from a temple. When he was adult, his life was became better as he became a Caesar. Being a Caesar, he backed to his hometown to visit his parents. However, his parents had died and he did know where they resting place are. Then, to find out his parents graves, he commanded to all of his citizens to visit their ancestors’ grave and clean it. Besides that, he also commanded to give a sign, yellow papers on the graves.
After all citizens did that, Caesar checked each of the graves in the village and he found some graves are not cleaned and are given the signs. He did that kind of thing as a form of his respect for his parents. So from that, it becomes a tradition for people until now.

Introduction To Chinese In Pontianak

West Kalimantan (Indonesian: Kalimantan Barat often abbreviated as Kalbar) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city Pontianak is located right on the Equator. Pontianak City (“Khun Tien” in Chinese dialect)  was founded on October 23, 1771 along the mouth of the Kapuas and Landak rivers. Pontianak has an area of 147,307 km² with a recorded 2010 census population of 4,393,239. Pontianak is a multicultural city. It has a large population of Chinese alongside the native Malay and Dayak ethnic groups. The rest are Javanese, Bugis, Madurese, and etc. Following the civil war and widespread poverty in China at the end of 19th century, many Chinese migrated to Indonesia, which also targeted Pontianak due to its strategic location for trading, main occupation of the Chinese. You may find that Pontianakians of each ethnic tend to live homogenously. For example, areas along Jalan Gajahmada are overwhelmingly Chinese whereas Sungai Jawi in the suburb are settled mostly by ethnic Malays.
Chinese/ Tionghoa population in Pontianak is predominately Teochew, with a Hakka presence as well. Those are chinese sub-ethnics. Most people of ethnic Chinese at the southern bank of Kapuas river speak Teochew, and those at the northern bank speak mostly Hakka (called Khek by locals). Mandarin is spoken mostly by those aged 30 years old or above, but do not be surprised if they mix it with Hakka or Teochew dialect as it is not very commonly spoken in town.  The Teochew dialect originally come from many provinces on Guandong, RRC, such as: Jieyang (pronounce in Teochew: Kek-nyo), Chaozhou (pronounce in Techew: Teo-Chew) dan Shantou (pronounce in Teochew: Sua-thau). I think this the introduction about Chinese in Pontianak. Later on, I will share to you the information about Chinese culture in  more specific.