And you can take
this quite literally in Malaysia. Not only is every day a party because I am on
holiday, but because the Malaysians just love to celebrate. This manifests,
among other things, in beautiful local girls singing while standing on golden
floats, followed by hundreds of people on foot with yellow-covered books on
their heads. And nobody was able to tell me what this, obviously religious,
festival was all about. Appeasing the Gods? Trying to redirect your own destiny?
Or just any old reason to make noise in the street until midnight?
Since my arrival
in George Town I’ve been going from party to party. First there was the end of
the Ramadan (Hari Raya or ‘Big Day’), which can be compared to our Christmas celebrations
in terms of the copious amounts of food, drinks (the non-alcoholic kind, that
is), presents, family parties and indigestions.
The day before the
Islamic Hari Raya, the Chinese community had started their own celebrations: ‘The
party of the Hungry Ghosts’, a month of festivities during which deceased family
members return to the living to cause havoc. As surviving relative you can,
however, prevent possible problems by offering copious amounts of food. And the
spirits are fussy because they want to eat their favourite snacks, which means
that food needs to be prepared, to order, in gigantic commercial kitchens. (Of
course they wouldn’t be Chinese if they didn’t turn this into something
commercial). After a month of indigestions (because afterwards you are allowed
to eat your prepared offerings yourself) the Chinese Malaysians are treated to
the final event of the festive month -you wouldn’t be able to come up with this
name yourself- which they call the ‘Happy Ghosts Festival’. Or what did you
think with all these full bellies. Indigestion Festival would have been a great
name as well.
Of all the
countries in the world, Malaysia has the highest number of national holidays.
(They do have fewer leave days on average). This is because each religion (or a
whole string of religions) is a recognised, official religion which is why all
related festivals are official public holidays. For everybody, of course, there
is no discrimination here!
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