Over the weekend, I could not live up to the Daily BR. My wife and I were just running up and down from Muara to our house. My wife's nephew was getting married and as you know Brunei's weddings can be quite hectic. The berbedak ceremony, the nikah ceremony and also the night before the wedding which was mostly for family. At ours, I noticed an interesting change. Previously there will be prizes for karaoke competition. This time there still was but there were 4 competitors only. The rest of the crowd was at the big screen competing in Winning Eleven and Guitar Hero. I did enjoy it plus the trip to see them bersanding at the bride's house in Telisai.
I also discovered a new element to the hantaran. I knew that different cultures had different ways. Even the difference between Brunei Malays and Tutong Malays can be drastic. So with this particular wedding, there were 2 items which we had to fulfill. One was a chalapa (a chalapa is place for keeping things specifically kapur sireh and the likes). The other was a kesabit. This is some kind of gift in the form of money to be given to the uncles of both the bride's father and mother. This is a more formal gift of something which I knew as informal. I remembered when I went to my cousin's wedding in Johor a few years ago, the groom had to bring lots of envelopes with small amount of money inside them. Every so often, he would get stopped by the bride's relatives and be asked for 'tax' to allow him to proceed to the bride. Though in Malaysia, that was more for fun. Well, you learn something everyday.
Over the weekend, I could not live up to the Daily BR. My wife and I were just running up and down from Muara to our house. My wife's nephew was getting married and as you know Brunei's weddings can be quite hectic. The berbedak ceremony, the nikah ceremony and also the night before the wedding which was mostly for family. At ours, I noticed an interesting change. Previously there will be prizes for karaoke competition. This time there still was but there were 4 competitors only. The rest of the crowd was at the big screen competing in Winning Eleven and Guitar Hero. I did enjoy it plus the trip to see them bersanding at the bride's house in Telisai.
I also discovered a new element to the hantaran. I knew that different cultures had different ways. Even the difference between Brunei Malays and Tutong Malays can be drastic. So with this particular wedding, there were 2 items which we had to fulfill. One was a chalapa (a chalapa is place for keeping things specifically kapur sireh and the likes). The other was a kesabit. This is some kind of gift in the form of money to be given to the uncles of both the bride's father and mother. This is a more formal gift of something which I knew as informal. I remembered when I went to my cousin's wedding in Johor a few years ago, the groom had to bring lots of envelopes with small amount of money inside them. Every so often, he would get stopped by the bride's relatives and be asked for 'tax' to allow him to proceed to the bride. Though in Malaysia, that was more for fun. Well, you learn something everyday.
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As for the Murut of Sabah, we have this tradition of giving some money called "Napuan Tapi" to the mother of the bride on top of the usual dowry paid to the bride's family - which I only came to know of when I got married.
Interesting to learn all these cultures.