Hari Raya

What is the meaning of Hari Raya to the people of Brunei Darussalam. I had a conversation with a friend whom brought this topic up. He said, he misses the old times where he went from house to house either on his own or with family and/or friends and just to drop by people’s houses and said hi!!

His Hari Raya experience cannot be more different from mine. I remember going to people’s houses with my sisters and some neighbours.... but we only went to houses of people we knew. We did not knock on all the houses in Ong Sum Ping (that is where we used to live as children), just because we can. Anyways, if my parents had known, we would have been dead meat anyways. We even asked for permission to go to neighbour’s houses... often making an appointment and planning when we can go over (talking over fences and asking our parents for permissions to see if it was ok to do so).

We did not even minded if we did not receive any “green packets”. We were happy with cakes, and keropok udang and acar. We were also very happy to be served soft drinks. Often, when we received ‘green packets’ we kept the contents to buy school supplies for the following academic year. So, how is my Hari Raya, the same with the children nowadays experiences?

Then, we never call people later than 9 pm. We do not even visit people’s houses later than 11 pm. But, the trend nowadays is to go and knock on people’s houses and talk till the wee hours of the day! I do not appreciate being kept up when tomorrow is a working day.

Hari raya is supposedly a month to celebrate our victory against demons within ourselves, give us a pat on the back for being able to resist temptations and devote ourselves spiritually. However, people now mistake the term to be something else....

Yes it is good to visit relatives. It is good to have a small feast to celebrate. Yes, it is even good for children to know their neighbours. However, how is it good going to people’s houses only because they have an open house, but do not visit them on other days? How is it good, to stuff yourself, after detoxifying your body for a month only to pollute it again? How is it good to teach our children to go to houses of people we do not know just so we can collect money so you have more to spend???