CELEBRATING HARI RAYA IN THE PAST (part 2)

In term of foods, the cakes or biscuits are serving only on uncovered plates. In the past, the people used ‘kain kasa’ if any or ‘kain lapas’ (cloth which has not been knit) to covered these food, with laminate drink bottle stand still below these clothes as a mean to prevent the clothes to met with the food. This bottle is also use as drinks for the Hari Raya, old people said that this drinks is really delicious, tastier than any other drinks that we have this time. The foods that are served is mainly Brunei traditional food that are still exist until nowadays such as ‘sapit’, ’kueh mor’, ‘kek sarang’, ‘kek seroja’ and etc.

Also, it is one of the tradition in which a house that still have an unmarried women will placed a whole cake in the middle of the serving food table, they called these as ‘kepala meja’ which is surrounded with the others cakes and biscuits. These cake is not for serve, it is just be left there untouched, if it is touched or in other words there is some part of the cakes that has been eaten, there a meaning behind those. Guess what? It means that there is a guy/man who wished to have that unmarried woman as his partner/wife. The most common cake used as ‘kepala meja’ is ‘kek sarang’.

The teenage girls went for Hari Raya with their boyfriend or fiancé or in short with the other teenagers of their age. They are not encouraged to go for Raya with their parents or the older ones. Why? I don’t know why as well, it is just a tradition during the past.

How about the green packet that most children are aiming for? In the past each children were given 0.50 cent if lucky if not they will get a sweet as a replacement.