As part of the Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration, our children savoured a deletable array of traditional food, including nice lemang, ketupat & chicken rendang. Actually, the young ones dressed in their best Baju Raya make the festive occasions alive with joys & excitement.
For the Muslim children, Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Eid Al-Fitr marks the culmination one month of Ramadan, symbolising the victory over personal struggles and fostering forgiveness and bulding stronger bonds among family and the loved ones. In my family, we take this opportunity to educate our children about Islamic teachings as well as traditional Malay customs and culture to promote togetherness.
Grandparents like my wife Zarina & I, we encouraged and engaged our grandkids in various activities in preparation for Hari Raya. We coached them the art of weaving ketupat, an iconic dish. These experiences enriched their understanding of Malay culture & traditions.
Reflecting about childhood activities in preparation of Hari Raya brings back nostagia of our youthful imagination, zeal and creativity of making ketupat and looking for bamboo and firewood for lemang that we used to do in yester years! We cannot help but to reflect very fondly on the kind of activities that we used to do when we were growing up - at our cool rural hometown in the peaceful kampungs.
Back then, life in kampungs or our little towns were so simplistic - no one saw colour or creed- we were just good friends, neighbours or village kids. There was no racial distrust, no offence was taken when insults were thrown, it was all taken in stride, no one cried foul unless it was over winning the school or kampung football or badminton games. It was fascinating glimpses of our colourful past.
May the memories and experiences from our Hari Raya celebration at home leave a lasting impression, fostering the cultural harmony.
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