Today is Friday, September 10, 2010, the day which is actually a blessed festival of Eid ul-Fitr for Muslim all around the world. Firstly, I want to wish all my Muslim friends here “Happy Eid Mubarak”. May God always bless you in this holy and auspicious day, and may it be a new beginning for better life. I wish you all health, success, and happiness as well. Even though I am not a Muslim, I still want to appreciate it. This festival is celebrated after 40 days of fasting has been implemented. In this festival, Muslim usually exchanges greeting like “Eid Mubarak” toward one another after performing the Eid prayer. They realized all the mistakes and sins they had done and then they request for forgiveness each other. Practically the sins they have made was cleansed as the result of implementation of fasting. They also visit their family in order to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr day. This is one type of a tradition that sometimes has to be done among them. In my country, all the Muslim who works in the capital city usually come back to their hometown to gather together with their family. So it really affects the traffic flow because it become so crowd and so many accidents happen in this time. However the government has repaired the damage road, still kilometers of traffic jam happen every year. Beside that, in the form of government concern to the Muslim employees, they mandated a rule to give a salary bonus. Yea, I don’t really understand the Eid ul-Fitr tradition in Malaysia but I am pretty sure that it is not really different with Indonesian tradition such as greet each other, forgiveness request, and come back to hometown. I see that most of the offices and banks are closed same as what happening in Indonesia. Last night on my way back home, I got stuck in the road then I realized that it was a takbir night where the sounds of muezzin chanting in the mosques. Yesterday night, I also saw so many oil lamps lit up outside the houses. Oh yea, I just remember I got one bunch of glutinous rice cake from my Muslim neighbor. In my place, they called the cake as “ketupat” or “lemang”.
They wrap the glutinous rice cake with the coconut leaf. Glutinous rice cake is one kind of traditional and special dishes in this festival. The last thing that grabs my attention about this festival is the traditional clothes. Most of the men and women are wearing that outfit. For men, they call the clothes as “baju koko” or “baju melayu” in Malay language. Baju koko is a collarless shirt with long or even short sleeve. It usually has embroidered design and added with a kilt sarong. Men have to wear a “peci” (traditional headwear). In this modern period, men can also wear western businessman suits as an alternative option. Beside that, the traditional clothes for women is familiar as “baju kebaya” in Indonesian or “baju kurung” in Malay language. It is a combination of loose-fitting blouse with brocade or broidered, long skirt that usually batik, and hijab. There are many things are interesting about Eid Mubarak and it must be maintained well. So, once more I wish you “Happy Eid Mubarak”.
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