String of Festivities

	The mosque in Kuah, Langkawi. We anchor right in front of it. The gold domes make a great landmark!

We just got a package of mail--always a happy occasion. Doubly so this time, because it included so many fine Christmas greetings from friends. This is one of the few times each year that our personal mail outnumbers the windowed envelopes and business stuff! Although I have already put away the Christmas decorations, but I will keep out the Christmas cards and letters. I like to read them several times over before they get filed away for next year.

Here I am thinking about Christmas cards, when I should be saying, "Gong Xi Fatt Choi!" (or similar spellings) Today, January 22, is Chinese New Year, so Happy New Year in Chinese! This is a National Holiday--everything will be closed. It's very much a time for family to be together. This is Thursday, and since people will be traveling to and from the family, many businesses will also be closed through this weekend too. Nothing will get done.

But it's festive! We've seen the Lion Dancers marching in the streets with their drums and colorful masks. Lanterns are draped across gates and entry ways of buildings, and shops are selling special foods and gifts along with greeting cards and traditional red envelopes--for the giving of monetary gifts. And get ready for the firecrackers! Of which there are plenty in Thailand, unless they used them all up on New Year's Eve.

Children choose their special Ramadan treats at the evening street market.

Isn't it interesting how all these ethnic holidays dovetail into one long string of cultural events, one long string of holiday festivities coming one after the other this year. Actually, it started off in October last year with the holy month of Ramadan. This is a month of fasting for the Muslim community. Muslims cannot eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. Thus, many of our favorite eating spots were closed during the day. Then in the late afternoon, food stalls were set up around various shopping areas, selling an amazing array of cooked foods--all ready to eat as soon as the cannon is fired, signaling sundown. Lots of cookies and sweets are sold, including dried fruits and about 10 different varieties of dates! Many families become food vendors at these special Ramadan markets, producing treats you don't normally see in the markets and food stalls during the rest of the year.

Ramadan culminates with the Hari Raya Puasa holiday--the Muslim New Year. This is the major holiday in Malaysia. Everyone wears new clothes, houses are cleaned and newly decorated, there are lots of parties and visiting back and forth. Business and shops are closed for 2 days, but depending on the day of the week, it can go on for 4 or 5 days. Transportation is overflowingly crowded, as are the hotels. It is worthwhile to pay attention to the local calendar and supply and plan accordingly.

Just a few days after Hari Raya in November came Deepavali--the Indian Festival of Lights. It's a celebration of good over evil, wisdom over ignorance, and light over darkness. We were in Penang the week before Deepavali. The streets of "Little India" were festooned with arrays of lights, strings of lights, balls of lights, stars of lights, canopies of lights. Lights covered buildings, outlined doors and windows. If you needed to buy "Christmas" lights, now was the time to do it! People buy new clothes and again, lots of sweets. We were told that sweeping your house is bad luck, because if the Goddess of Good Fortunes has followed your lights and entered your door, this would sweep away good fortune!

Then came Christmas. Actually, in Langkawi it was hard to find much in the way of Christmas. However, we had to go to Penang early in December. Presto! Christmas abounded--decorations, strings of lights (probably just didn't put away the Deepavali displays!), Christmas carols in the stores--all without the maximum intensity found in American communities. More sweets in the markets, lots of chocolates and cookies with Christmas type packaging, special gift baskets of foods and goodies.

By Christmas we had sailed to Phuket, Thailand, which we enjoyed with cruising friends in a tropical environment--bathing suits instead of mufflers and mittens, palm trees instead of firs and spruce, orchids instead of poinsettias and pine cones. We did have roast turkey and baked ham, gravy and stuffing, and yams, Christmas pudding and pumpkin pie! And sweets. It looks to me like everybody's holidays require sweet things in abundance--the universal holiday celebration ingredient!

And now it's Chinese New Year. All these holidays are not always so calendar-coordinated, of course. Ramadan and Chinese New Year are dependent on the phases of the moon. But regardless of the timing, we feel lucky to have been able to share the holiday festivities of such diverse cultures.