Happy Ji-It Meh!

Happy Ji-It Meh!

Today is a special day for us here in my hometown as we celebrate Ji-It Meh (21st of the first lunar month). Or also known as the usual Cap-Go Meh (15th of the first lunar month, or the end of CNY) festivity. It's also known as 元宵节 or the lantern festival. But instead of celebrating it on the 15th, we celebrate it on the 21st. If I'm not wrong, the reason why we celebrate it on the 21st is because in the old days the lion and dragon dance troupe would travel from Bogor, Cianjur (neighbouring towns) and my hometown. But since they can't be on the 15th in 3 different cities, the festivities were spread across different times. Cianjur was held on Tuesday I think. And my hometown's on the 21st.

We haven't celebrated this on a big scale like today for 5 years. The last time this was held on a big scale was on 2015, and that's only near the temple grounds. This year we went all out to the main streets of my hometown haha. Which was quite a surprise! Anyway thankful that the event went on smoothly. Kudos to the organisers and everyone else involved. It was a great celebration!

My cousins and I carrying the sedan for Hou Ciang Kong

Went to meet my cousins Febi and Nanan at Iyo's shop before the event started. I really didn't expect the parade to reach quickly. They started at 3 PM and by 4:30 is they already reached my cousin's shop which is quite far away. When I reached it was just nice that they arrived too. Met Febi and Nanan and we went around with the parade taking turns to carry the sedans of the deities, with other people too.

Salute to the all-ladies crew carrying the Guanyin sedan

I forgot to bring a towel so I was carrying the sedan right on my shoulder. And I'm so gonna be prepared to have painful shoulders tomorrow haha. The sedans are heavy. Well most probably someone is sitting inside (AKA the deities) so yeah. Met with some of the folks from my hometown and we just carry on taking turns to carry the sedans as we parade through my hometown.

Interesting experience carrying someone who's on a trance

Something interesting happened during this. Nanan and I were asked to help carry the sedan from a temple from Jakarta. And we gladly went. But... We didn't know we were carrying a sedan with a man in trance on it! And boy it was so heavy haha. It's quite gruesome to see the man's back with blood but I understand he's on a trance. It was a sedan for Ne Zha, famous in Chinese folk story. The interesting thing was... I'm not sure if it's physics of what, but we couldn't walk in a straight line. Me and the people carrying the sedan were just trying to keep a straight path haha. Interesting.

We didn't follow the parade back to the temple as we have a long walk home so we parted with the parade halfway back to my aunt's place. And then Nanan sent Febi and me home. It was a great Friday and Ji-It Meh indeed. I hope we can do this again next year with more of my cousins!

Happy Ji-It Meh once again everyone :)