Araw ng mga Patay/Day of the Dead
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Araw ng mga Patay, the day to commemorate the souls of departed friends and family is one of the few times of the year that transforms the streets of the Araw Ng Mga Patay the public market. For despite the morbid literal meaning of the occasion (Day of the Dead), it is in fact a vibrant two-day affair that turns gloomy cemeteries into a carnival-like setting.
"The day is celebrated November 1st, but preparations for it usually start very early the day before, or sometimes even days before that. I wake up on the last day of October, eagerly anticipating the almost magical transformation that has occurred overnight in front of our apartment, located on the main street right across from the market.
Late in the afternoon we would all take a jeepney to the site, a whole brood of seven or eight of us, with the flowers and candles to place on the grave. Sometimes my father would come, but my mother never went: her illness prevented her from going in case the large crowds precipitate a seizure.
Children big and small would be running all over the place, hopping from one candle to the next to collect the molten wax and form it into a ball, in a game of who can collect the biggest wax ball of the night. This prized possession will then be expected to turn up at school the next day, especially if one could claim the bragging right of having collected the largest, most perfect globe.
Particularly interesting to see were the tombs of deceased Chinese. For instead of the offerings of flowers, bowls of food and other delicacies were always offered to the souls of the dead, complete with chopsticks, as if waiting for a banquet to start. Jokes would always be made about raiding the sumptuous food afterwards, but no such thing ever occurred as far as I know, so deep is everyone’s respect for each of these offerings that to have done so would incur the wrath of these souls, otherwise peacefully resting in their eternal sleep.
An hour or so later and we were all ready to start the long trip home, content with the feeling that we, the living have done our duty to our departed loved ones, and return to the normalcy of everyday life, in the back of our minds silently praying that we’ll all still be around a year later to do it all over again".
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