The 2nd Day of Lunar 2 Month (農曆二月初二日)

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In our Chinese Religion, Chinese Culture & Chinese Custom practices, the 2nd Day of Lunar 2 Month is considered as an important day (for Year 2008, it falls on 9 March).

Why?

Cos, on this Day, a few Religious events will take place and one of the events will involved the different dialect clans.

Now, let me starts with the first event - Celebration of the Manifestation Anniversary (Birthday) of Fu De Zheng Shen aka Tu Di Gong (福德正神土地公).

Fu De Zheng Shen aka Tu Di Gong, known as Da Bo Gong (大伯公) in South East Asia (東南亞), a Deity that is appointed to look after an Area or the Mortals that lived in the Area, which is a Deity that being widely honoured by the different Dialect Clans World-wide.

On the 2nd Day of Lunar 2 Month, the Chinese or the Taoists will conduct Rituals/Ceremonies to celebrate the Anniversary of Tu Di Gong, hoping to get the necessary good blessings from Tu Di Gong for the next 10 Months.

And so, in the Morning of the 2nd Day, the Chinese or Taoists will prepare the following offerings for the celebration:

1 Five sets of Fruits (according to the Five Elements 五色水果)
2 Longevity Noodles (壽面)
3 Longevity Peaches (壽桃)
4 Ang Ku Kueh (紅龜粿)
5 Huat Kueh (發糕)
6 Kueh Nheng Kor (for Hokkien Clan 雞蛋糕)
7 Pheng Kueh (for Teochew Clan 飯粿)
8 Jian Dhui (for Hakka/Cantonese Clan 煎堆)
9 Hainam Kueh (for Hainanese Clan 海南粿)
10 Rice Wine (米酒)
11 Chinese Tea (中國茶)
12 Cooked Chicken (雞)
13 Cooked Duck (鴨)
14 Cooked Fishes (魚)
15 Roasted Pig or Roasted Meat (燒豬/燒肉)

Once all the offerings are being prepared, the people will do the offering to the Tu Di Gong.

During the Honouring, usually the Leading Person of the Family or the Leader of the Religious Venue will lead the Honouring or Anniversary Respect.

After the Honouring, Paper-offerings will be offered or burnt, dedicating to Tu Di Gong.

The following Paper-offerings are the items that being dedicated to Tu Di Gong:

1 Shou Jin or San Bao Jin (壽金/三寶金)
2 Gui Ren Paper (Da & Xiao 大小貴人)
3 With Silver Paper (for Hakka/Cantonese Clan 銀紙)
4 With Xi Qian aka Kai Lu Qian (for Cantonese Clan 溪錢或開路錢)
5 With Jing Yi aka the Paper-Clothing (for Cantonese Clan 經衣)

Before the burning off, the Leading Person will need to kneel down in front of the Burning Area to do a quick report to Tu Di Gong (and any passer-by Deities) on who dedicated these offerings to Tu Di Gong (or any invited Deities).

Once the quick report is being done, the Leading Person will light the Paper-offerings with Fire and then lead all the other people to go one round against the burning, in-order to get the light & Positive Energy bestowed onto each individual from the Burning (cos in Taoism Ritual Customs, we do have a Mantra to Praise on the Burning, once the Praise is being recited, the involved Deities in the Burning, such as Deity of Fire, Deity of Paper, Deity of Gold, Deity of Silver, etc, will be called upon to provide the necessary blessings or doing recording, etc).

Once the Burning is done, the Celebration is will marked an end, after returning to the Honouring Area, the offerings will be distributed out to the other members for bringing back, this is to symbolize getting the blessings from Tu Di Gong (or any other invited Deities).

Now, lets carry on to the other event that take place on the 2nd Day, which is known as Tou Ya (頭牙).

On the 16th Day of Lunar 12 Month in the passed-old year, the Chinese or Taoists will conduct a Wei Ya (尾牙) Honouring/Respect to Fu De Zheng Shen & the Spiritual Armies (folks known as Five Camp or Five Directional Generals) and on the 2nd Day of Lunar 2 Month, the Chinese or Taoists will conduct a Tou Ya to honour Fu De Zheng Shen and also, to mark the start of the Rewarding of the Spiritual Armies for the New Year.

On this Day, those who dedicated Statues, Flags or Altar to the Spiritual Armies at Home, Temples, Sintuas or any Religious Venue, will need to prepare offerings to Reward the Spiritual Armies.

The usual offerings will be cooked dishes and lots of Paper-offerings (including the most important papers - Huang Qian Jia Ma 黃錢甲馬).

For some people, they will engage the Taoist Priests or Taoist Spiritual Masters to conduct the Rewarding Ritual/Ceremony, cos, only this group of Spiritual People will know the actual procedures of summoning the Spiritual Armies and providing the necessary Rewards to them, etc, but in the Modern Society now, a lot of Folks tend to save up money on engaging of the Spiritual People or they claimed that they got the Spiritual Agreements from the Heaven to conduct the Ritual/Ceremony by themselves on the Rewarding of Armies, etc, and so, the actual Culture of doing Tou Ya is not longer being seen in Singapore or in any Part of South East Asia.

Once Tou Ya ended, then the normal Rewarding of Armies on the 2nd Day & 16th Day of every Lunar Month will resume, and this will also mark an end to the Important Day in our Taoist Calendar for the 2nd Day of Lunar 2 Month.