raya

I spent this year’s Raya in KL &  Singapore, all with F’s family, visiting all his extended families all week long.

I have long known and realized that the family dynamics & climate in his side and mine are drastically different, both in a nucleic way and generational – so I just went into this whole trip trying to be as accepting and curious as possible – albeit a bit reluctant missing my own family’s Raya back in Kelantan and Perak. But an agreement is an agreement, so off the six of us and 20 different bags of goods went to Singapore in a rented car.

His nenek lived alone in of those HDB apartments in Queensway, which was a five minute walk from Ikea. F’s mother grew up with 3 other siblings there in a 2-bedroom apartment, not more than 600 square feet, a wondrous achievement I think. The whole 10-20 blocks around the area were full of old people in wheelchairs or sitting in benches, it looked almost dreamlike. Even the G2000 store down the road is taken care of a charming 60-yr old woman.

But raya was raya, so we went to probably 5-8 different houses in a day all around the various neighbourhoods there whose names I could not remember, and it surprised me how charming an apartment can be. Visiting a house here means sitting in the house and having conversations mostly about hospital visits, the best school for the kids, activities for students and parking fees. So I enjoyed myself in the servings of carbonated drinks, pizza, nutella cakes (tapak kuda thing), potato chips, lontong, and a sad version of lemang – all while trying to access wifi for each house. All in all, it was interesting. And I don’t get those ‘are you pregnant yet’ questions here, so all is good.

It’s different from my own raya definitely, where the whole family would go to the masjid for solat raya, come home and eat lots of food, and then wait for the 20-30 people that would come visit the house. I would be making tea, entertain my younger cousins, say hi occasionally to the visitors (neighbours mostly), go to the kitchen and fix my own keropok lekor or milo if I feel like it, or go out and play with the goats and chickens. In the afternoon my parents and the rest would visit each house on foot, depending on whose home, and chat with the neighbours. It’s a low-key affair, where we would sit in kitchens while I kacau my cousins’ monkey or read their Dr. Slump comics. And then the next day, everything would turn normal and my father would begin do his kebun works, picking up manggis or rambutan and menebas.

I often wonder, these days, after marrying F, the differences between our families. My father, the eldest, had to leave his hometown to study and eventually made a living in KL, while most of his siblings stayed behind – opening photo studios, or a pharmacy agent, a nurse, wholesale distributor. Some of them went to Johor and worked in Singapore working a construction workers, working in KFC, Chatime, RnRs doing odd jobs –  one was chased by alongs and ran back to Kelantan to start a new life.

Contrast this with F’s side, whose grandparents settled in PJ and all their children had a very urban upbringing. I would say they were well off in each their own way, with each children with more opportunities, with maids cooking hari raya dishes for us, or at least had a stable job in a good company. Everyone was more closely knit with each other, celebrating occasions on a monthly basis- such that I became uncomfortable with this newfound social obligations

Whereas for my father, his family’s life is so much removed from ours both in distance and mode of life, that for us, there is not much to relate. It became the burden of my father to maintain relations with his family, us not participating. A few months ago, he went home by bus alone to settle family affairs, somewhat lamenting because we were so ‘busy’ with our own affairs here. Of course, I feel guilty myself, for basically ignoring my cousin studying in Shah Alam.

F asked me what would happen if my father died – would we still maintain contact with the other families. I said, yes, but probably not as close and dutiful as F’s family would.

We do things because we want to, not because we think we have to. Eventually, we have our own lives to live, and to feel stuck or to hold on to something because we feel obligated out of relations, nostalgia, enmity, ‘duty’, friendship, a job, a degree title we hold, or even because of the long time spent on them, is something I deeply disagree with.

Maybe I am selfish this way, but I choose to be happy.