Grave tradition for the chinese clan

EVERY April, a number of unrelated Teochew men and women visit the graves at Woodlands' Kwong Hou Sua cemetery.

They come with parcels of duck, cake and fruit - fare for the dead they pray to during Qing Ming, a Chinese ritual in which ancestors are remembered.

Generation after generation, the same families have been doing this for more than 80 years, some nearly a century.

But although their faith is strong, the ties that bind them to those who lie buried are not so closely linked. In fact they do not even know who they are.

What Mr Boo Li Yam, 55, remembers is a simple exhortation from his mother when he was a teenager: 'She told me, 'These graves belong to those who came from our village in China more than 100 years ago.

' 'We don't know them, but they have our surname. So, we must take care of them.' '

Last week, the tyre salesman and nine other people revisited the graves - the second time this year - a rarity.

This is because the graves are being exhumed to make way for redevelopment by the Singapore Land Authority.

The exhumation, conducted in two phases, began in February but drew attention after historians claimed the 150-year-old burial ground was Singapore's last surviving Teochew cemetery.

When Mr Boo and his clansmen heard about the exhumation, they came forward to claim the graves as their own. Last Monday, the remains in the 27 graves were dug up and cremated.