China Overseas Chinese Network, March 29. According to Malaysia’s Sin Chew Daily, in order to avoid inadvertently violating the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) during grave sweeping and receiving high fines, people in many places in Malaysia and the Yishan management team are strict To implement and comply with the grave sweeping SOP, in the early morning of March 28, the flow of tomb sweepers in Yishan in all districts appeared to be sparse.
This year the government allowed people to go to Yishan to sweep the graves and announced the grave sweeping SOP. However, due to many epidemic prevention restrictions, there are few grave sweepers this year.
According to the director of the Kuantan Hainan Yishan Administrative Committee, the Yishan Mountain will be open for grave-sweeping from 6 am to 12 noon every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from March 26 to April 11.
During this period, they also arranged for team members to set up monitoring stations at the entrances and exits, allowing the public to scan QR codes to register, fill in the visitor record book, check body temperature, etc., and hire volunteer guards to guard and maintain order.
On the 26th and 27th, the opening of grave sweeping activities was quite deserted. Although the number of grave sweepers increased slightly on the 28th, they were still sparse.
Kuantan Huichao Chiayi Mountain, from March 20th to April 11th, every Saturday and Sunday, from 5:20 am to 12 noon, and from 3 pm to 6 pm, there are two time slots for people to visit the graves.
The director of the Yishan Management Committee said that due to the shortage of volunteers to assist in the supervision, they can only open on Saturdays and Sundays. If people choose to visit the grave from Monday to Friday, they must call to make an appointment with them.
He said that although there is only one week before the first day of the Ching Ming Festival, there are not many grave sweepers. Even though March 28 is a Sunday, it did not appear to be lively and crowded. The number of grave sweepers was controlled and everyone was very active in cooperating.
Tomb-sweeper Zhang Shiwen said in an interview that this year the government is fortunate that the government has allowed the tomb-sweeping. Under the epidemic prevention conditions of the SOP, the deceased grandfather and father have been swept the graves.
"The government restricts people's grave-sweeping time to one and a half hours. I think this is enough. We arrived at 6:45 in the morning for grave-sweeping and sacrifices, and it was done very quickly."
Mr. Fu, a citizen of Kuantan, said that he and his relatives began to pay attention to government information before the new year to see whether tomb sweeping is allowed and the requirements for grave sweeping. After seeing this year’s regulations, they also coordinated. The elderly and children will not follow this year. Come to sweep the tomb, so this year only 6 people in the family came to sweep the tomb, not as many people as in previous years.
Huang Guoxing said that in 2020 they were unable to sweep the graves due to the epidemic, leaving regrets in their hearts, and felt sad. This year the government allowed the people to sweep the graves, so they strictly abide by the SOP to sweep the graves, which finally made up for the regrets in their hearts.
Zou Jinhua, a citizen of Kuantan, agrees with the SOP formulated by the government for epidemic prevention. He said that in this way, the number of tomb sweepers in Yishan will be controlled, and the crowd will no longer be crowded, so that the grave sweepers can quickly complete the tomb sweeping and sacrifices.
Although the Temaru Chinese Yishan Council has set up QR codes at all intersections, it is convenient for people who come to visit the tomb to pay homage to the ancestors to scan and register.
However, compared with the previous scene of going to Yishan to sweep the tombs and cars lined up on the roadside, this year the government implemented the grave sweeping SOP for the first time, which made Yishan seem extremely deserted, and only a few people went there.
The number of tomb sweepers of Chinese Yishan in Wendejia has increased a lot over the past week, but the number is also under control.
The board members of Wendejia Chinese Yishan and volunteers from the Security Bureau stationed at the intersection and distributed QR code slips to facilitate the grave-scanning and sign-in of the public. At other exits, voluntary guards stood guard.
Approximately 10 directors of the Yishan Council also personally came to supervise and help maintain order.
The number of tomb-sweepers of Chinese Yishan in Kuala Jienao increased slightly on the 28th compared with the opening day of the 27th. As of around 8 am, 20 households had visited Yishan to pay homage to the tombs.
The chairman of the Yishan Management Committee said that it may be because of the prohibition of the interstate order that the wanderers could not return to their hometown to visit their graves and worship their ancestors.
Bentong and Kuan Guang Shan Yi had already seen people go up the mountain. Despite being restricted by the SOP, they did not hinder everyone's wish to worship the ancestors during the Qingming Festival and successfully completed the worship within the time limit.
The chairman of the management committee said that from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., about 200 households have come to visit the graves, which can be said to be very enthusiastic.
The Liangguangshan Sien Columbarium is open from Monday to Friday, allowing people to enter the pagoda to worship. However, it is not open on Saturdays and Sundays. People can only worship at Daboting in order to control the flow of people and avoid overcrowding.
Xue Hancai, who came to worship and sweep, said that he and his children went to Yishan to visit the tomb on the 28th and had gone to two different places to worship the ancestors within 90 minutes.
"Because of time constraints, the worship is compact, but we have made arrangements in advance, such as reducing the purchase of paper sacrifices to shorten the burning time, and everything is simple."
Citizen Xu Shengxin also said that he and his family arrived at Yishan to scan first, and one member went to Daboting to worship, and then everyone worked together to clean the tombstones and place sacrifices. Everything went smoothly.
Zhong Shaoan said that ancestor worship on the Ching Ming Festival is a very meaningful festival. He and his family went to Liangguangshan Mountain to worship three ancestors for their filial piety. The Liangguangshan Mountain Management Committee took all epidemic prevention measures and the grave sweepers abide by the SOP, so There is no overcrowding.
(Liang Guanghui, Li Peizhen, Zheng Peiqin, Zhang Zhenghua)