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It’s Hungry Ghost Month, which means many Singaporeans will commemorate their dearly departed with burnt incense and joss papers.
But attitudes towards the time-honored tradition may change as more and more internet users no longer seem to view the practice as positively as they used to.
On Sunday (July 31), the ashes from the burning of Hungry Ghost offerings drove diners who had eaten outside at Jalan Kayu from their meals.
A woman named Lala had sent a video of the incident to the crowdsourced news site Stomp, showing a woman and a man outside an establishment called Jane’s Cake Station burning incense on a drum, spreading smoke and ash widely.
The video also shows that the outdoor dining areas of the eateries next to Jane’s Cake Station were empty.
“The seventh lunar month is when there is prayer for Hungry Ghost and the burning of incense. A lot of understanding, tolerance and civic sense is practiced during this period.
However, I was shocked when an owner of an F&B company ignored public hygiene by burning incense in front of their store, where there are other restaurants with outdoor customers nearby,” Ms. Lala told Stomp.
She added that customers left because of the burning of the papers.
And even after one of the employees at the neighboring eateries spoke to the couple that the incense was burning, the husband and wife insisted it wasn’t their problem.
“As operators of F&B companies, they were not aware of the hygiene problems of other F&B companies. With the wind, the ash flew like snowflakes,” Ms Lala added.
Some internet users who responded to the incident said this should be tolerated as it only happens once a year.
Others, however, were less likely to be tolerant.
Some netizens seemed to resign themselves to the practice.
/TISG
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