Quiet Qing Ming in Sibu as out-of-state folk stay away

Tiong is one of many Sibu folk staying in the peninsula who will not be flying back home for Qing Ming festival.

SIBU: This year’s Qing Ming festival is going to be a quiet one as most people will not be celebrating it due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sarawakians working outside the state are not flying home for the festival as the movement control order (MCO) is still in force.

William Yap, who works in Singapore, with a heavy heart, is giving this Qing Ming festival a miss for similar reasons.

A regional manager of an American multinational, Yap, 54, said it was better to play safe by not celebrating the festival in his hometown Sibu.

For the past 30 years, he has never failed to come back to pay his respects to his late parents.

“This is not a good time to travel. It is better to stay where I am for now, ” he said in an interview through WeChat.

He added that if he was to come back, there would also be limited flights.

“If I fly back, I would have to observe 14 days of quarantine. That would be very troublesome, ” he said, adding that he was still planning to observe the festival once the situation returns to normal.

His four siblings in Sibu say they will observe the festival.

Meanwhile, Lovetta Tiong, 52, is also staying put in Kuala Lumpur instead of flying back home for the festival.

A managing director of a construction company, Tiong had on March 17 decided to skip the festival.

“The government had announced that interstate travel would be disallowed due to the Covid-19 outbreak and with the number of cases increasing each day, it would be better for me not to travel out, ” she said. — By ANDY CHUA