Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

After a month of fasting comes a month of feasting!

Technically, the celebration of the end of Ramadhan — known as Eid ul Fitr in Arabic but referred to as Hari Raya Aidilfitri in Malaysia (or Raya for short) — is only on the first day of the month of Syawwal. In Malaysia, however, the celebrations last for the whole month of Syawwal.

So how is Raya celebrated in Malaysia?

On the 1st day of Syawwal, which Malaysians call ‘Raya Pertama‘ (first day of Raya), people flock to the mosques and suraus for Eid prayers, all dressed up in new clothes — baju Melayu for men and children and baju kurung or baju kebaya for ladies and girls — with matching brand-new shoes or sandals.

The prayers are not obligatory but most people try to go. Many ladies often have to stay behind at home for final preparations of the food, because after prayers, people naturally rush home to eat. The Raya spread usually includes ketupat (rice inside woven young coconut leaves which has been boiled for four hours) and rendang (chicken or beef simmered in coconut milk and spices, continuously mixed until most of the liquid has evaporated and all that’s left is a rich thick paste to be eaten with the meat).

The whole family then gathers round because it’s customary for children to kiss their parents’ hands and ask for forgiveness for all their shortcomings for the past year. The kissing of the hands literally means that — kissing the back of the right hand of one’s parent or elder — unlike the Philippine version, which just involves touching the back of the right hand of one’s parent or elder to one’s forehead.

The parents then give the child duit Raya, very similar to the Chinese ang pao, except that the money is usually placed in a green packet. Only children who are not yet working and are not yet married are eligible to receive duit Raya. Children who are already working are also expected to give duit Raya to their younger siblings.

The first three days of Raya are usually reserved for visiting close relatives. From the fourth day onwards, friends and business acquaintances start dropping by with very little lead time, if at all. And this is where all the feasting comes in — as you go to each house, you are served food and you are, of course, expected to eat so as not to offend your host(ess).

The food served for Raya almost always involves rendang and ketupat. In lieu of ketupat, there’s also lemang (glutinous rice with coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and placed inside segments of young bamboo) to be eaten with the rendang or lontong (rice boiled in banana leaves instead of coconut leaves), to be eaten with rendang and/or kuah lemak (tofu, rice vermicelli and long beans cooked in coconut milk, made yellow with the addition of kunyit or tumeric powder). If you’re lucky, there might be laksa Johor, asam laksa or maybe even satay and spaghetti. But rendang is inevitable.

If you’re full (or just feigning to be full, in case you find that you’re unable to eat yet another bite of rendang), you can politely decline and just help yourself to the kuih Raya. These are assorted cookies and biscuits, ranging from the modern (London almond — cookies with a piece of whole almond inside, dipped in chocolate, sprinkled with almond bits on top and served in a mini papercup, cip coklat — chocolate chip cookies, tat nenas — pineapple tarts) to the traditional (love letters — round thin wafers, folded into quarters, batang buruk — small sticks stuffed with green bean powder, kuih bangkit — cookies made from tapioca flour and santan that melt in the mouth).

With all that feasting on rich, sweet and fatty foods, I guess now would be a good time to do some overtime at the gym. Perhaps, for people wishing to take the short cut, they’ll start looking for stuff like orovo diet pills (I wonder if they work?).

Raya is like Christmas and New Year rolled into one. Everyone’s in a happy, festive mood. There are open houses everywhere. On Raya Pertama this year, for instance, the Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Abdullah Badawi, and his Cabinet had their open house at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), which some 200,000 people attended to have some free food and/or shake hands with the Prime Minister and other ministers. Then, at night, small children run around with sparklers or take turns tossing pop-pop firecrackers into the ground. Once in a while, you’ll see fireworks light up the sky. (NB: Firecrackers are illegal in Malaysia but somehow, people still find ways to get them.)

And while the streets of KL are strangely empty, normally-quiet small towns and cities like Kota Bharu in Kelantan suddenly have bumper-to-bumper traffic, with cars bearing — you guessed it — KL and Selangor licence plates.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to one and all!

Tags: celebration of Eid, kuih Raya, Raya