Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China

6 The Bond of Ancestor Worship

With the coming of the Singapore Chinese after the reform years, the social and cultural life of the villagers became more colourful and exciting. The period from the 1980s to the late 1990s witnessed a revival in both traditional socio-cultural and religious activities. Much cultural life now centres around three types of worship: (i) that of the ancestors, which involves the ancestral house and the performance of meritorious deeds for dead ancestors (such performances are called gongde, 功德); (ii) that of the living, which involves religious rites for the flow of descendants (rites called juanding, 涓丁); and (iii) that of other deities, such as the celebration of the Buddha’s birthday (fo dan,佛誕), communal village celebrations, the procession of the county deity (ying Qingshui zushigong, 迎清水祖師公), the rebuilding of Qinghui zushigong Temple and its environs, known locally as Qingshui Yan (清水岩), and the reconstruction of small village temples devoted to various local deities, such as Zhouyue Miao (州月庙) and Penglai Si (蓬來寺). These religious activities can be broadly divided into communal and individual. This chapter and the next will explore religious revivalism in the ancestral villages, qiaoxiang of the emigrants and their descendants. I will explore the significance of ancestors within the Chinese cosmology and the revival of ancestor worship of the Ke Lineage in Penglai, and the extent to which ancestor worship and related practices are gradually being reproduced to cater for both the increasing, overt needs of the Singapore Chinese and for those of their village kin. Practices associated with ancestor worship permeated village life by the end of the 1990s and brought together the Singapore Chinese and their village kin ritually to acknowledge their common ancestors, thereby forcing them to acknowledge the kinship ties that exist between them. I will examine the extent to which religious rituals and culture are reproduced in 6 The Bond of Ancestor Worship Kuah_06_ch06.indd 131 11/11/2010 11:43 AM 132 Rebuilding the Ancestral Village the village environment, the extent to which the revival of ancestor worship is relevant to the contemporary Chinese family, lineage and village, and the extent to which this revival is the result of a request for cultural continuity rather than purely an instrumental act aimed at luring Chinese overseas to the village for financial contributions. Other issues to consider are whether the revival is a reflection of the understanding of ancestor worship by the Singapore Chinese alone, and to what extent the practice of ancestor worship has changed with the interaction, in contemporary time and space, of different sets of social players and social environments. Bridging the Social Gap: Ancestors and Ancestor Worship Who are the ancestors? Throughout Chinese history, ancestors, both living and dead, have been an important part of the Chinese family, lineage and community. They are collectively seen as both the source of the lineage and as transmitters of Chinese culture. Records of ancestors, their roles and their significance, are found in numerous writings. One of the earliest works to revere ancestors is the Confucian Book of Filial Duty (Xiaojing, 孝经), in which Confucius outlined proper behaviour towards elders. Descendants were extolled to treat their living parents with filial-ness (xiao, 孝) and their dead ancestors with ritual propriety (li, 礼), and it was important to treat both living and dead ancestors with respect and human-ness (ren, 仁). Ancestors occupy a central position in Chinese cosmology. Death is not seen as the ultimate cessation of life (De Groot, 1964, vol. 1: 4), but as the separation of yin (陰) and yang (阳) energies. After death, the spirit (hun, 魂) moves from one realm of existence, that of the human world (renjian, 人间), where the physical form is visible to the naked eye, to the netherworld (yinjian, 陰间), where the dead assumes a spirit status in a form undetectable to human eyes. Ultimately, the dead aspires to attain a godly status and to reside in the heavenly realm (yangjian, 阳间) (Yang, 1961: 150–151). In the after-life, either in the netherworld or in the heavenly kingdom, the dead continues to interact and interface with the living in the human world. The disposal of the newlydead with proper rituals (sangli, 喪礼) and the proper conduct of ancestor worship (jizu, 祭祖) were seen as essential,1 and all descendants, from the emperor downwards, were required to fulfil ritual duties to their ancestors. Among Confucianists, such acts express ‘gratitude towards the originators and recalls the beginning’ (Yang, 1961: 44). Ancestral halls (zongtang, 宗堂) and memorial halls (citang, 祠堂) where descendants could perform sacrificial offerings and ancestor worship were found both within palaces and...