Daily CutsThe Alliance for Action has organised a dialogue recently to get views on joss paper burning & to address myths of the Hungry Ghost Festival. The goal is to address issues like pollution during joss paper burning, without ending tradition. Venerable Shi Yo Guang, Secretary-General of the Singapore Buddhist Federation tells Arnold & Nadirah what was discussed during the dialogue.
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now Asia first with Arnold Gay and Andrea Ha.
It is August. Uh and besides National Day, besides the Women's World Cup, you know, this is also the Hungry Ghost Festival which takes place at the end of the month. Yeah. And during this period, you know what, it's normal to see people in your neighborhood and, you know, unfortunately, it can be a bad experience for some like, yes, like, I mean, I was, I wasn't convinced yesterday we were talking about the story and I wasn't convinced that
this was still a problem because, you know, I, I noticed how they have all these burners and in allocated places which are away from the blocks. So everything, you know, I thought was hunky dory but apparently not so hunky dory. No, because there are some people who are just not responsible about this whole thing, right? Uh So for me,
um uh in my neighborhood, there were people like buddy John people, which is fine, which is normal. But then, you know, because I, they put the, the, the, the what do you call the, but I think it's called. Right. Right. Next to my house so that you can, as they move the burner, they move the, but
to below your block to below my block. So it's not meant to be there. It's on the floor. I don't live on a high floor. My goodness. So the smoke was coming in, the ashes were all coming in. Exactly. So the, and, you know, and we got like young kids in the house. So, so, so that, that is irresponsible on the part of whoever moved it. And obviously the residents are, the residents
wouldn't know, necessarily know that, you know, it had been moved and they would continue burning your flat. Oh yeah. Ok. I mean, perhaps, you know, the silver lining is that uh it still happens, but the silver lining could be that the number of complaints over the burning of jaws paper um
during the Chinese New Year period in February this year fell by 70%. Yeah, that's right. So is working there, the Alliance for Action organized a dialogue recently to get views of paper to address myths of the Ghost Festival. And the goal of this dialogue basically is to address issues like pollution, doing just paper.
But at the same time, you don't want to add this tradition, right? It's absolutely something that you want to be able to keep. Let's find out more from the venerable Xy Kang who is Secretary General of the Singapore Buddhist Federation. How good morning. How are you.
Good morning. Good morning. And
thank you very much for joining us. Yeah. So, so tell us, I mean, we know that the dialogue happened. I mean, what, what kind of feedback have did you receive yesterday from participants who were there with you?
Yes, good morning. Uh The dialogue happened yesterday evening and uh there is a very active and a happens between the speakers and the participants. Yeah. And I think over 100 participants came over and uh
we address the things that this a fa is not to stop joy burning, but it's important to respect our cultural heritage and identity. At the same time, it is very important to improve our social sensitivity and responsibility, hence uh enhancing our harmony amongst our
communities. Yeah. OK. So there is recognition from people who were there that they do have to be responsible, they do have to be sensible and accountable as well. So, so, I mean,
how can we actually achieve this, you know, without I guess uh causing inconvenience and perhaps uh you know, a certain amount of danger as well to other people who, you know, who might be living in the neighborhood.
Yeah. So just like what you have mentioned, we also told them that uh it is not necessary that we need to move the burner just under your home and then that and to make it effective. Uh So
just like we do not need to bring the ATM Tellers when we deposit our money under our whole.
Right. Right. So, so the burner
is a common practice in the past where people are just in the and then they just, it's common for them just to burn in front of them instead of their neighbor's house. Ok. Yeah. So, so they continue this practice without realizing,
realizing this. Yeah. OK. OK. So, so the burners are actually purposely placed quite far away from the block. So there's, there's no
smoke and ash drifting into homes. The other interesting thing that that was talked about at the dialogue would be burning smaller amounts of jaws paper as well. I mean, was this well received? I
think we encourage this uh um quantity quality versus quantity. So I think it's oh quoted things like, you know,
uh during the mid open festival, we have mooncakes. If we can't eat quantity, why not? We go for quality? So even even even the joys people, there's good quality ones. So I think it's something that you need to take things into consideration and the way we burn it,
the we burn it in small amounts. Like what we our grand grandparents had did in the past or they just chuck the whole and you will be having this incomplete combustion, then it results in a lot of smoke,
right? Especially when like stack of notes, right? Paper are all stacked together, then it then it takes a long time to burn.
Yeah, I still remember in the past my grandparents, they were just uh you just fall in a way that is, is uh less compact. You have more effective burning. Right. Right.
OK. She, I believe pollution was also discussed during the dialogue. So you know what happened on that front?
Pollution, I think back to complete combustion when there is more, more combustion. When you see flame, there will be less smoke. Yeah. So uh back to the same thing that we just need to burn properly or there is another option is uh you do the prayers in either the monastery or the Taoist temple.
Yeah. So this is uh suggestions
that that's quite, that's quite interesting. I mean, how, how was that was that received? Well, instead of, you know, um burning the paper below the block, go go to a temple. I mean,
so some of them they find it. Oh,
we should continue this tradition at home. I will say that we reassure them that we are not stopping them for doing this at home. But there is an alternative that you might consider understood.
Is there a difference doing it at home? And also at the temple. Uh
it, it's like the community things. It's like you having your moon cake at home or you having a moon cake with a gathering of people with I see more in.
Yeah. So it's, it's really depends on personal choices i imposing whether they should
or not. So it's a personal preference if anything. OK. And she, you also address myth of the ghost festival during the dialogue. What sort of myths would you like to bust?
And first of all, it's not a Hungry Ghost festival uh in for it is called Festival and for the Taoist it's called.
So it's not really about 100 gros because humans tend to type things to things that they are similar or familiar with. It's just like it should be called Mid Autumn Festival instead of a festival instead of dumping festival, it's not the Chinese festival is not a festival of food or things like that.
Understood. OK. Um We know that public education efforts uh is, is part of the reason why complaints, you know about pollution and other complaints related to jos paper buring have come down. Is it possible to improve on this further?
I think uh on the a fa part we did improve on the Ed MS or at the new at the leave landings and on the leave itself and in increase the clarity of the message and improve public outreach through dialogues like yesterday and continual uh community understanding. Education is important and one of the participants uh there is grassroots among them. They say that uh why not? Uh we have this dialogue at,
at uh at the ground itself. I think it helps. It helps. Yeah,
you mentioned that if, if it's possible we go to all the CCS I think to make it effective which grassroots organizations who are interested to engage the fa they can contact the A fa secret, right? Alright.
Thank you so much. Appreciate your time this morning.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you.
You too venerable. Xy Guang is Secretary General of the Singapore Buddhist Federation.
