Every year, when the seventh month of the lunar calendar arrives, familiar signs appear across Kuala Lumpur.
Offerings are placed along roadsides, incense is lit and joss paper is burned for the spirits of the departed.
For many Malaysian Chinese, this is a deeply rooted tradition.
It is not the place of city authorities, or anyone else, to tell them what they should or should not believe.
But there is a simple question worth asking: when did observing a tradition become a licence to leave its mess behind in public space?
Walk through some neighbourhoods during the seventh month and the evidence is difficult to miss.
Grass verges are scorched. Pavements are blackened and wax-stained.
Ashes and half-burnt paper are scattered across roadside. Food offerings are left behind.
Sometimes, these activities take place beside drains or in places where pedestrians have little choice but to walk around them.
The issue is not the offering. It is what happens to the public space afterwards.
There is perhaps another reason why some offerings are left behind.
There is a belief among some practitioners that removing them too soon could mean the departed have not finished receiving them.
To clear the offerings, therefore, may feel like interfering with the ritual.
However, traditions do not have to remain frozen in time.
Look at Hong Kong.
The Yue Lan Festival remains an important Chinese tradition, but the city has adapted the way it is practised in a densely populated urban environment.
Its authorities do not tell people to abandon the ritual.
Instead, those observing the festival are advised to burn incense, joss paper and offerings in suitable metal containers and, importantly, to clean up the spot before leaving.
Leaving ashes or burning offerings on the street is treated as a cleanliness and fire-safety problem.
This is not Hong Kong turning its back on tradition.
It is Hong Kong recognising that tradition must coexist with modern urban life.
If Hong Kong, a city with deep Chinese cultural and religious traditions, can adapt the practice to the realities of a dense modern city, why should Kuala Lumpur be any different?
Respecting tradition does not mean refusing to change the way it is practised.
Kuala Lumpur already has by-laws that give DBKL powers to deal with some of these problems.
Public spaces cannot simply be used as dumping grounds for paper, ash and rubbish.
The problem, therefore, is not necessarily that Kuala Lumpur has no rules.
It is that there appears to be little specific, proactive management of a practice that returns predictably every year.
DBKL need not declare war on a cultural tradition.
Nor should it have to choose between cultural sensitivity and a clean city.
The basic expectation should be simple: Burn in a suitable container, away from pedestrian paths, drains and vulnerable landscaping; do not obstruct public access; and remove the food, paper, ash and other materials afterwards.
You can keep the tradition. You do not have to keep the mess.
Tradition can evolve without disappearing.
The meaning can remain while the method changes.
Religious practice deserves respect.
So does everyone’s right to a clean, safe and accessible city.
The spirits may not mind the ashes and the mess.
The living certainly have to live with them.
Shing Si Yan
Kuala Lumpur
