Went to a temple in Toa Payoh to pray to my grandparents with my other relatives today. Sitting there and folding the yuan baos from the yellow paper which we will burn later on, I sort of realised, maybe such customs were created by people in the past to keep relatives close together?

I mean, I used to live with my grandparents, so my relatives will come visit them every now and then (children visiting their parents). So this kinda gathering also keeps the bonds between me and cousins, uncles, aunts etc strong I guess. Once my grandparents passed on, besides the reason of keeping the family tightly-knitted, there isn't much reasons to have gatherings eh. Besides those monthly gatherings which we make compulsory, such kinda Chinese custom practices also bring us together every now and then in a year, going to temple to pray to our grandparents, we'll sit around in between the processions and chit-chat while folding our yuan baos, haha.

I believe there is this slight possibility that religions are created by people (maybe from the govt in past civilizations) to keep the citizens under control. I agree that religion and law works hand-in-hand to prevent people from doing wrong(lots of gray areas here). So there's also this possibility that such Chinese customs are created to keep family bonds strong even after the senior generations have passed on eh. Just some food for thought, hehe. =P

posted by sc @ 2:42 pm