On Wednesday, August 22nd (my dad’s birthday, happy 48th dad!) my family celebrated Eid al-Adha in Mersing, Johor. Eid al-Adha is one of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide and is also known as the feast of sacrifice. There are many different ways that families celebrate but two consistencies are that the men go to the mosque to pray in the morning and there is a ceremonial killing of a cow. The meat from the cow that has been sacrificed is normally given out to people who do not usually have access to meat in their daily lives due to the expense. After these two ceremonial tasks are completed the rest of the day is very relaxed and filled with eating all sorts of food. Also note the Durham shirt my younger host sister is wearing in the group family photo (Go bulls!).
Some of the amazing food we ate during the day. The traditional rice is cooked into cubes in the basket-like holders I am holding in the image above.
During the day we mostly ate food and hung around the house which led my host cousins to teach me a traditional Malay game played with rocks called selambut (aka Batu Serembat). Basically there are 10 different levels of how you are supposed to pick up the rocks and the objective of the game is to get through all 10 levels without messing up. If you mess up than the rocks go to the next person and they get a chance. My host cousin was amazing at the game, I wasn’t as great. However, I had a great time trying again and again to pick up the rocks (I got to level 7!) with my host brother and cousins.
At the end of the day we went to the beach and took many artsy photos as well as sung karaoke. As I recounted the events of the day it was startling to me of how similar my experiences have been with my natural dad’s family. When I get together with my Indian side, we do very similar things. We take artsy photos, eat lots of good food, hang around the house all day, and we even sing karaoke (badly).
Here is a photo I took a month earlier with my cousins in my bedroom. We had seen a photo of a bald man with two faces connected by their foreheads where the upside down head was pouring a beer into a glass that the upright head was holding. For some reason we tried to recreate the photo using my cousin Aneesa and me with a root beer.
This was two days ago at the beach, you can see two of my host cousins taking photos together. Something that I could def see my cousins in America doing as well. They also took silly photos just like the one that I was trying to recreate with my cousin Aneesa.
On exchange we are told how different everything is going to be and how it may be difficult at times because the traditions are so different from what we are used to. However, the more that I take part in the activities the more I see similarities. Yes, the traditions are completely different and the language is totally new and I don’t get every concept thrown at me. But the overall meanings and concepts are completely familiar. This week I spent two nights sleeping with way more people than a bed is originally meant to hold, laughed with family, ate, and just got to relax with family. The purpose of Eid al-Adha is not just the prayers and killing of a cow, it’s a time for family to get together and bond. That is exactly what we do in America, whether it is at Thanksgiving in Dallas with all of your cousins or in North Carolina celebrating Christmas on the 16th because people will be out of town on Christmas and you guys just really want to have a moment all together.
Originally, I had thought that the family first aspect of Malaysia was going to be the most different part of exchange since I am such an individualist. Now that I am here, I see how the family exchanges are very much like those that I left behind in America (I miss you Anika, Nikasha, Aneesa, Baa, Dada, Zane, Dylan, Anya, Mila, Archie, Darshan, Kian, etc.) and for once, I know exactly what is going on.
- SEJAL
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