Exposures

Yesterday my family went for QingMing - to the graves of my children’s great-grandparents whom they have never met.

Though I am of the Christian faith, and as contradictory as it may sound, I encourage my children to learn about their ancestors and pay their due respect.  Notwithstanding that there may be religious rituals overtones and making of offerings when families visit the graves, I believe that my children should be exposed to this.  They need not pray nor partake in the offerings, but there is no harm in my opinion for them to pay their respect to their ancestors and help clean up the grave sites. 

My youngest is getting to the age where he begins to question why and what are we doing during QingMing.  My teenagers are now able to help out in cleaning the grave sites and lend their young energetic muscles to carry the materials things brought there by their elders.  When the elders burnt offerings of "material luxuries", it was also a time for them to learn of how various faith/cultures pay respect to their ancestors.  

In two weeks’ time, my children will be going to their maternal relatives’ grave sites. There, they will be exposed to yet another way of how their Christian relatives pay their respect to their departed.

My children may not believe nor practice any of the above in the future, but it is my hope that through these exposures and many more to come, they will grow up learning tolerance and respect of others faith and culture.  Whilst there is no rule stating that we should understand all cultures completely, what should be the rule, however, would be the need for tolerance of those aspects that we do not understand.  The least I can do as a parent is to prepare them for this by teaching them to respect, understand and appreciate other traditions and customs.  For a multicultural society can only coexist peacefully when there is acceptance and tolerance of all those aspects that defy understanding.