Worship to the Heavenly God (Tien Gong)
This is a little late but I have no idea that the 9th day of the Lunar New Year is a big thing to the Hokkiens here in Penang. It’s called ‘Tien Gong Tan’ or Heavenly God’s celebration.
I did not get to enjoy so much last year on this particular celebration since Darrius was just about 2 months old… still kelam-kabut (disorganised) with feeding and coaxing Darrius to sleep. However, this year we really get to see what is this celebration meant to the Hokkiens here… according to PiggyBeng, this day is considered the actual New Year Day for the Hokkiens as this is the day the Hokkiens has won over the Cantonese (ok… not sure if I got this correctly).
PiggyBeng took the day off so he can bring us around on the eve to see what people will do to celebrate. We drove around the city and some housing areas and witness people gave offerings of gigantic josticks, burning papers, lots of food (some even have the whole roasted pig) and sugar cane. Sugar cane is believed to be the saviour to the Hokkiens. Why? Caused when the Hokkiens were being chased by the Cantoneses, they took cover (hide) between the sugar cane trees and thus saved them from the Cantoneses and free from being executed.
At our house we also did not spare on the offerings except less the roasted pig lah! 
And another thing, we went ahead with the fireworks too! SIL’s hubby got a few boxes of the fireworks which he got from his relatives. We tried to put them up during the eve of CNY but got visited by the mata (police) and kena stopped! We have to keep and realese them when everyone is doing so on the eve of the 9th day! PiggyBeng actually asked what is allowed… guess what they said???? Only POP-POP!!!! (For those who do not know what is POP-POP, it is the very small crackers that kids throw on the floor which will sparkled with a pop! sound) Btw, we got a 2nd visit from the mata again! So, gave angpows lor! What else right???? And we continued after they left!
Anyway, the entire night was like a showcase of fireworks everywhere in the island. The ping-ping-bang-bang sound started even before midnite! There were many really nice looking ones around and we tried to capture some but they all turned out too small…
Here we captured one which were quite far away from our place….
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I enjoy the history lesson. More! More! Mean ol’ Cantonese people. Wait’ll I talk to my wife about her ancestors. keke
ya..those “mata” come just want to get angpow only!I heard from my friend said KL also the same thing, once they come and kacau u just give them angpow than they won’t kacau u anymore!
Yeah agree with annie. But pop pop so sian…but i dun really fancy fireworks esp those VERY LOUD ones…scare kids only. Then we susah ..
eh i heard penang had the 500metre long fire crackers!!!