Happy Chap Goh Meh

Chap Goh Meh goes by a few names. In Mandarin it is called Yuan Xiao, but in the traditional Hokkien dialect, Chap Goh Meh means the 15th night of Chinese New Year. It is celebrated with prayers and offerings to mark the end of the Chinese New Year. During this auspicious occasion, houses are brightly decorated with lights and lanterns are hung over the balcony or five-foot ways for the last day of the Chinese New Year. Prayers to the ancestors are offered. Despite a ban, firecrackers are lit as a 'send-off' to the new year. The next day, people go back to work, businesses operate as usual and everyone is looking forward to the next Chinese New Year.

In Sarawak, mostly the Chinese business owners will close for business on Chap Goh Meh and get together with family members at home or restaurant for lunch or dinner. But in other states, especially in Penang, various activities are planned to mark this very traditional occasion but the two mainstays are the Dondang Sayang and orange/tangerine throwing ceremony. In the morning, nyonya households will distribute pengat, a sweet and rich broth of tubers and bananas to relatives and friends. As evening falls, the atmosphere relaxes as the gentle strains of Dondang Sayang fill the air. Dondang Sayang, literally meaning lullaby of love, is an interplay of sung poetry, usually revolving around the theme of love, between a man and a woman, each trying to outwit the other in the name of affection whilst traditional music plays in the background.

In the past, Chap Goh Meh was one of the few occasions where eligible young ladies, transformed into scorching beauties, were allowed out from the confines of their homes. Eager gentlemen could only admire longingly at all the passing beauties, as the lovely ladies were always accompanied by an entourage of the fiercest looking aunts and amahs (servants)! These young maidens (and spinsters) would throw oranges into the sea as a gesture of hope to wed good husbands. To keep this quaint tradition alive in modern times, orange throwing has transmogrified into a competition of sorts, where oranges thrown into the sea by girls (single or otherwise) would be scooped up by boys in boats. The boat with most oranges would be declared the winner.

Last but not the least, I would like to take this oportunity to greet all of you who read my blog, a Happy Chap Goh Meh.....