Where the unborn are laid to rest
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The Straits Times, Aug 20, 2006 by Teo Cheng Wee
At the An Le Memorial Park, spirits of miscarried or aborted foetuses are laid to rest in urns nestled in columbarium niches
CHILLING newspaper images of an undertaker carrying a fruit box with a dead baby inside shocked Singaporeans earlier last week.
Sales assistant Wong Lih Tyng, 36, was charged last Wednesday with dumping her child in an employee’s locker at Bishan Junction 8’s NTUC FairPrice supermarket.
The body of Wong’s premature baby, which may have been stillborn or died during delivery, is believed to have been in the locker for two weeks. Wong has been remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for further evaluation.
The lockers have all since been replaced, says an NTUC FairPrice spokesman.
But while some babies are dumped, others at least have a resting place at the top floor of An Le Memorial Park in Choa Chu Kang.
Sunny, lush with greenery and boasting open spaces, there is a placid calm around the columbarium, broken only by the chiming of soft Buddhist music and the peaceful rustling of leaves when the wind blows.
But this top floor of the columbarium is not for ashes of fully-formed babies. Instead, the niches are for the spirits of months-old foetuses that may have died because of abortion or miscarriage.
An Le’s marketing director Thomas Chua says the top floor is the perfect place for baby spirits to play. ‘They won’t kacau (Malay for disturb) the adult spirits from up here,’ he whispers, as he carefully shuts the glass door that separates the concrete shelves of the infant niches outdoors from those of adult niches indoors.
The reason they need to be housed, says geomancy master Ang Boon Soon, is that ‘as foetuses, these souls haven’t been fully formed yet, so they can’t be reincarnated. As a result, they stick around their parents’.
That area on the top floor, which was opened just last year, is managed by the Yuan Zhong Xiu Geomancy Centre. Mr Ang, 42, who is also the centre director, says he has seen a greater demand for these niches in the last few years.
An Le is the first columbarium here to group the niches of ‘ying ling’ (Mandarin for baby spirits) together. Since it opened, more than 700 urns have been placed, with another 200 more to be added next month. Think of it as a supernatural childcare centre for baby spirits.
Mr Ang says that distraught parents come to him for help when they feel that the spirit of their baby continues to linger around them after its death.
‘If it has other siblings, it may also get jealous of the attention they get from their parents and disturb them.’
And it is not only for those who recently lost their baby. Couples have come to him 20 or 30 years after an abortion, claiming that they feel ‘shadows’ around them.
According to Mr Ang, the baby spirit may have been around all along, but was just not felt by them previously.
By grouping them together, the baby spirits have a place to stay and would not wander. It also makes it easier for priests to perform mass rituals, which take place a few times a year and give the baby spirits a chance at reincarnation.
Each baby spirit is housed in an urn, and a niche can be shared by four urns. These contain the hair and nails of the parents, as parents usually do not claim the foetus after birth. ‘A few parents have more than 10 urns here,’ Mr Chua remarks with a heavy sigh.
The parents’ surnames are carved on the outside for identification, but – unlike ancestral tablets – parents are not encouraged to pay respects, lest the baby spirits ‘cling on and don’t leave’. It costs $1,388 to place one urn and $500 for each subsequent one.
‘People tell me that they feel better after they put an urn here for their unborn baby,’ says Mr Ang. ‘It’s like a weight has been taken off their shoulders.’
fengshui’s poser for API forum readers:In Western and Eastern’s beliefs, all of us have a soul. Now when did the soul enter the unborn foetus in the mother’s womb?
First day after fertilization of the sperm and egg cell?
One month ?
Three months?
When the foetus develop sensory organs inside the womb?
When the foetus can survive outside the mother’s womb? (around 24 weeks old)
At earlier stages of the foetus (embryo), many vertebrates share similar morphological features. Does animals also have souls too? Do we have guilty pangs when we abandon/kill the cats/dogs/pigs/monkeys?
Higher primates like apes share more than 97% of our DNA!
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The Straits Times, Aug 20, 2006 by Teo Cheng Wee
At the An Le Memorial Park, spirits of miscarried or aborted foetuses are laid to rest in urns nestled in columbarium niches
CHILLING newspaper images of an undertaker carrying a fruit box with a dead baby inside shocked Singaporeans earlier last week.
Sales assistant Wong Lih Tyng, 36, was charged last Wednesday with dumping her child in an employee’s locker at Bishan Junction 8’s NTUC FairPrice supermarket.
The body of Wong’s premature baby, which may have been stillborn or died during delivery, is believed to have been in the locker for two weeks. Wong has been remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for further evaluation.
The lockers have all since been replaced, says an NTUC FairPrice spokesman.
But while some babies are dumped, others at least have a resting place at the top floor of An Le Memorial Park in Choa Chu Kang.
Sunny, lush with greenery and boasting open spaces, there is a placid calm around the columbarium, broken only by the chiming of soft Buddhist music and the peaceful rustling of leaves when the wind blows.
But this top floor of the columbarium is not for ashes of fully-formed babies. Instead, the niches are for the spirits of months-old foetuses that may have died because of abortion or miscarriage.
An Le’s marketing director Thomas Chua says the top floor is the perfect place for baby spirits to play. ‘They won’t kacau (Malay for disturb) the adult spirits from up here,’ he whispers, as he carefully shuts the glass door that separates the concrete shelves of the infant niches outdoors from those of adult niches indoors.
The reason they need to be housed, says geomancy master Ang Boon Soon, is that ‘as foetuses, these souls haven’t been fully formed yet, so they can’t be reincarnated. As a result, they stick around their parents’.
That area on the top floor, which was opened just last year, is managed by the Yuan Zhong Xiu Geomancy Centre. Mr Ang, 42, who is also the centre director, says he has seen a greater demand for these niches in the last few years.
An Le is the first columbarium here to group the niches of ‘ying ling’ (Mandarin for baby spirits) together. Since it opened, more than 700 urns have been placed, with another 200 more to be added next month. Think of it as a supernatural childcare centre for baby spirits.
Mr Ang says that distraught parents come to him for help when they feel that the spirit of their baby continues to linger around them after its death.
‘If it has other siblings, it may also get jealous of the attention they get from their parents and disturb them.’
And it is not only for those who recently lost their baby. Couples have come to him 20 or 30 years after an abortion, claiming that they feel ‘shadows’ around them.
According to Mr Ang, the baby spirit may have been around all along, but was just not felt by them previously.
By grouping them together, the baby spirits have a place to stay and would not wander. It also makes it easier for priests to perform mass rituals, which take place a few times a year and give the baby spirits a chance at reincarnation.
Each baby spirit is housed in an urn, and a niche can be shared by four urns. These contain the hair and nails of the parents, as parents usually do not claim the foetus after birth. ‘A few parents have more than 10 urns here,’ Mr Chua remarks with a heavy sigh.
The parents’ surnames are carved on the outside for identification, but – unlike ancestral tablets – parents are not encouraged to pay respects, lest the baby spirits ‘cling on and don’t leave’. It costs $1,388 to place one urn and $500 for each subsequent one.
‘People tell me that they feel better after they put an urn here for their unborn baby,’ says Mr Ang. ‘It’s like a weight has been taken off their shoulders.’
fengshui’s poser for API forum readers:In Western and Eastern’s beliefs, all of us have a soul. Now when did the soul enter the unborn foetus in the mother’s womb?
First day after fertilization of the sperm and egg cell?
One month ?
Three months?
When the foetus develop sensory organs inside the womb?
When the foetus can survive outside the mother’s womb? (around 24 weeks old)At earlier stages of the foetus (embryo), many vertebrates share similar morphological features. Does animals also have souls too? Do we have guilty pangs when we abandon/kill the cats/dogs/pigs/monkeys?
Higher primates like apes share more than 97% of our DNA!
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