The haze is back in Kuala Lumpur today

Check out Haze situation for June 22, 2013

Is the haze back in KL? It smells like someone is having a huge barbeque party. Not likely during the day, of course, and in this hot weather? The smell of smoke is in the air (even permeating indoors) and the city is shrouded in smog as you can see in the image above. The Petronas Twin Towers are like a watermark against the hazy sky.

When smog happens here, a common guess is that open-burning is taking place across the Straits of Malacca. This activity is normally associated with land-clearing in preparation for farming season.

Incidentally, currently is the season for tomb-sweeping for the Chinese Buddhist/Taoist community. The burning of paper-offerings could also contribute to the bad air quality. However, this period usually brings rain so it sort of negates the bad effects of open-burning somewhat.

The actual tomb-sweeping day is April 5. Tradition dictates the period to visit the tombs as between ten days before and ten days after April 5. All visits will have to be made within this period. For auspicious reasons, it is compulsory for all family members (who are planning to visit the tomb(s)) to go at the same time. Married daughters are not included.

There is a huge Chinese cemetery in the city, the Kwang Tung Cemetery, and during this period during the weekends, the roads are usually congested with traffic leading up to the cemetery. This sprawling Chinese cemetery covers some 343 acres and has been in existence for more than a hundred years. It has been maintained in its original historical state and is the final resting place of prominent city pioneer, Kapitan Yap Ah Loy (known as the Founder of Kuala Lumpur) and other KL early leaders including Loke Yew and Yap Kwan Seng. Kuala Lumpur has roads named after their prominent leaders.