This year my family continued the annual All Saint's Day visit to departed relatives at the Manila Memorial Park in Dasmariñas, about a 2-hour drive from my home. As typical visits go, it's always in this order: Pay your respects (with incense sticks), eat lunch, hang around for a coupla hours, go home. Also as usual I got slightly sunburned (damn you, sunlight!), passing the time was a challenge (thank you, MP3 player!) . Wilson brought a laptop and just watched
Serenity.
For most Tsinoys here, sitting under a hot sun looking over a gravemarker is not a great way to spend the day. This is why we have the mausoleums. Grandpa's even has a sink and a toilet!
Seeing as how people die all the time, I shouldn't have been surprised by how crowded the cemetary was (I have 4 relatives there at present), but it was a madhouse this year. It was like being at a Renaissance fair. Picnics, tents, kids playing and climbing trees. Good thing the park's occupants are dead or they'd be really peeved at all the noise and mess we make.
This year my family continued the annual All Saint's Day visit to departed relatives at the Manila Memorial Park in Dasmariñas, about a 2-hour drive from my home. As typical visits go, it's always in this order: Pay your respects (with incense sticks), eat lunch, hang around for a coupla hours, go home. Also as usual I got slightly sunburned (damn you, sunlight!), passing the time was a challenge (thank you, MP3 player!) . Wilson brought a laptop and just watched Serenity.
For most Tsinoys here, sitting under a hot sun looking over a gravemarker is not a great way to spend the day. This is why we have the mausoleums. Grandpa's even has a sink and a toilet!
Seeing as how people die all the time, I shouldn't have been surprised by how crowded the cemetary was (I have 4 relatives there at present), but it was a madhouse this year. It was like being at a Renaissance fair. Picnics, tents, kids playing and climbing trees. Good thing the park's occupants are dead or they'd be really peeved at all the noise and mess we make.
3 comments:
Mausoleums in a country with a very high rate of poverty?
Being more discreet should be the rule. I'm sure everyone agrees on respecting the dead. But most of those mausoleums can practically house entire families living in the slums.
Don't see what one has to do with the other. You wanna talk priorities? Try telling scientists to stop those studies on cow-tipping and CURE F@#*ING CANCER ALREADY!!!
now i see why some developing countries stay that way while others forge ahead into better days.
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