Stichting Familie ManIN EUROPA
Five moments when the Man family comes together – what we celebrate, where it comes from, and how to join in if you never learnt it at home.
Every tradition on this page comes in three layers: what it is, why we do it, and how it goes with us – in Amsterdam, at a round table, with relatives who sometimes don’t speak a word of Cantonese. At the bottom is a glossary of the terms you hear at every family gathering.
Fifteen days of festivities around the first new moon. For us: the Spring Festival dinner at Sea Palace, and every four years the inauguration of the board.
Starting the year clean: settling debts, sweeping the house before New Year’s Day, and greeting the elders first.
Red envelopes (lai see 利是) you give with both hands, always new notes, never an odd amount. Married? Then you’re the one giving them.
The day families clean the graves of their ancestors and bring food and incense.
For a clan that looks back this far, this is the hinge: no ancestors, no family. Ching Ming is about the recent ancestors: grandparents, great-grandparents and the generations before them. The founding fathers get their turn at Chung Yeung.
If you can’t get to Hong Kong, light incense at home by a photo. That counts too.
Rowing races and zongzi: sticky rice in bamboo leaf, steamed until it tastes of the leaf.
In memory of the poet Qu Yuan – a story of loyalty to your country that echoes that of Man Tin Cheung.
Within the family, each household makes or buys its own zongzi.
The full moon of the eighth lunar month. Mooncakes, lanterns and tables for 200 to 300 relatives.
Round, full, complete – the moon as the image of a family back together.
Be on time: dinner really is served at 18:00. Cut the mooncake into as many pieces as there are people at the table.
The ninth day of the ninth month: back to the graves, and traditionally a climb to higher ground.
Ching Ming is for the recent ancestors; Chung Yeung for the distant ancestors of the whole clan. On this day hundreds of descendants from San Tin, Chau Tau and Europe gather at the grave of Man Sai Gor 文世歌 near Tuen Mun – the busiest clan gathering of the year.
Travelling to Hong Kong in October? Let us know – there’s almost always family going along.
Behind almost everything on this page is one word: 孝, haau, usually translated as filial piety. It means respecting your parents and caring for them while they live, and going on remembering them once they are gone.
That is why you go to the graves at Ching Ming and Chung Yeung, why name tablets stand in the ancestral hall, and why the eldest at the table gets the best seat. It is less a belief than a way of being grateful – to your parents, and to the generations before them.
In the tradition, the line runs through the sons. A son stays in the family and carries on the offerings to the ancestors; a daughter passes to her husband’s family when she marries. That is why, at 點燈, a newborn son is entered into the hall.
ESSAY BY WAN LOI MAN →The customs that aren’t on any calendar, but that you need to know once you join in.
Where the name tablets stand and where marriages, births and the autumn banquet are announced. San Tin has five; Tung Yu Tong 惇裕堂 is the main one. What you do there, and what you don’t.
The order of the offerings, what to bring, and why there’s always too much food.
Who sits where, who pours first, how you say thank you with two fingers on the table – and why the fish is never turned over.
Missing a word you heard at home? Send it to us – we’ll add what the family brings in.