Planes, durians and steam boat sets: Qing Ming gifts for the dearly departed

Qing Ming may well be observed very differently this year no thanks to the Covid-19 outbreak, but its traditions stay the same.

More than any other year, the Qing Ming festival this year is the talk of town among the Chinese community due the movement control order (MCO) that is keeping Malaysians indoors for four weeks from March 18 to April 14.

This partly overlaps with the stretch from late March to early April – 10 days before and 10 days after April 4, the actual date – which is usually a popular period for the Chinese community in Malaysia to perform their obligatory ancestral worship duties.