Hari Raya Haji or Hari Raya Aidiladha

About 60.4% of the population in Malaysia were celebrated the Hari Raya Haji yesterday. It was the Muslim religious day.

Hari Raya Haji also know as Hari Raya Aidiladha; Hari Qurban; Hari Kurban or Eid al-adha. It was a public holiday in Malaysia.

Mostly the Malays coffee shops, road side stalls, food courts and restaurants were closed for this festival. Somehow, there were a few Malays shops which open for business in this festive.

In Pulau Pinang state, the public holiday fell on Sunday this year. So today Monday, holiday still on. However the Malays states such as kedah, Perak, Kelantan, Pahang, Terengganu, Johor, Perlis and Negeri Sembilan... they had more holidays since Thursday.

In Malaysia, any public holiday is enjoying by all the enthic group. Foreign and local shopping mall, coffee shop, food courts, restaurants were full with people eating and shopping. Some even took this holiday go for vacation.

In the morning, all the men, women and children bath and wore the new clothings and went to the mosque to do the Eid prayers. Talks also will be given in the mosque. They used the loudspeakers, and of course it could be heard from anywhere, especially in the open air of the village or kampung.

Some foreign workers such as Bangladesh muslim, Pakistan muslim also went to the mosque in the morning for the Eid prayer.

Yesterday many areas had the heavy rain, so mostly muslim took the car to the mosque but some also used the motor cycles or bicycles. It seemed they were in the rush to reached some where.

Many cars just parked at the road side, mostly violated for the car parking procedure. When passed through the road which near to mosque need to be careful. Traffic was jammed in certain time.

Drivers worried to hit the car or hit the walking people. Most of the times the zebra cross not being used, looked like no function, cause the people preferred the no zebra cross area in certain places.

After the Eid prayers, muslim will sacrifice the good and best domestic animals such as cows and goats. Sacrifice ceremony must be done properly. The meat have to give to the poor and hungry people, so that they can enjoy the festival together. The remain meat will be cook for the families members to eat.

After the prayers, some spent the time in the shopping malls too or do the window shopping.

At market and on raod sides, the Malay hawkers also sell the' daun palas '. Daun palas is a long leaves from a Licuala palm trees species. The cake named was ' Ketupat daun palas ' and it needed to weave and boil the ready made glutinuos rice packet into the water.

Here the Muslim hawker sold the beef on the road side and market; also could be seen the muslim sold the 'lemang'. It is rice in the bamboo. The coconut milk glutinuos rice had to be put into the inner layer of the bamboo and it has been previously put on the banana leaves. Then arranged it one by one and bake it with fire in the open air until cooked

It was also the time for the relatives and friends to visit each other and eat the new year biscuits and cakes or others traditional Malays food.

Penang Asam Laksa

This Penang Asam Laksa is very famous in Malaysia, even won number 7th place of World's 50 most delicious food which published by CNN Go in July 2011.

You can enjoy to take this Penang Asam Laksa in hawker center, coffee shop, road side stall or food court in Penang state.

It is not only the loves from women and men but also young and old. When tracing back the history, it looks like the "Peranakan culture food". The hawkers who sell this Asam Laksa mostly from ethnics Malays and Chinese.

The soup is sort of a bit spicy and sour taste and rich with fish flakes and fish flavour. The Mackeral or 'ikan Kembung' in Malay language is widely used for making this Asam Laksa soup. Some local poeple used Sardine or 'ikan Sardin' to cook too, but not so fragant as the previous one. The Mackeral is being clean, cut and shredded and poached to make the fish broth as soup.

Meanwhile local people also used these ingredients; lemongrass, galangal or 'lengkuas' in Malay language, Chillies and tamarind put into the soup and poach. The dried sliced tamarind local people called as 'asam keping' or local called as 'asam gelugor' also being put in the soup to poach, it bring out the sourness to the soup. No coconut milk use.

The hawker will start to serve you with taking a plate or bowl with the white rice thick noodles or a bit thin noodles which looks like vermicelli.

Then they will garnish with Raw vegetables on top of the noodles, such as mint, thin sliced cucumber, thin sliced pineapple, thin sliced of red big onion, some red sliced chilly, some thin sliced lettuce. Some Chinese hawker will add in the shredded pink colour ginger buds or "bunga Kantan", for it's frangant.

After garnishing, the hawker will put the fish stalk on the noodles and meanwhile the hawker also put a few pieces of the dried tamarind as garnishing the Asam Laksa in the plate or bowl..

One plate or one bowl of this Penang Asam laksa is vary from place to place, from town to village. It's cost about RM1.20 to RM3.50.

One Malaysia, People first, Performance now

YAB Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak had been appointed as 6th Prime minister in April 3rd, 2009. He gave his first speech to public and during that time he had been touched about building the "One Malaysia, rakyat didahulukan, pencapaian diutamakan". He meant "One Malaysia, people first, performance now"

He would like a fairly new approach task to reshape the strong leadership and also the priorities of the govenment performance.

He even elaborated more about the slogan, berasaskan nilai (Valued base); Berfokuskan strategi (Strategy focus) and dipandui prestasi (Performance driven). These were the guiden and a way for everyone to move ahead and achived the goal for Wawasan 2020 (Vision 2020). Wawasan 2020 was introduced by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad in 1991 during the annoucement on the sixth Malaysia plan. It is a Malaysian ideal.

At Oct 7th, 2011 Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek from MCA said the 2012 Budget proved Barisan Nasional (consists of UMNO, MCA, MIC, GERAKAN, PPP, PBB, SUPP, PBS, LDP, PBRS, UPKO, SPDP and PRS) really put the concept of the "people first".

Actually, many pro and contra feedbacks from the nations through media, facebook....afterall, the local poeple feedback, it is just like 'changing the ingredients in the soup only" ! People are still watching very closely for every performance that had been made, especially wheather the outcome is beneficial for all the nations or not or just certain groups or certain ethnics.

One Malaysia

I see so many Satu Malaysia logos in Malaysia. In order to understand more about it, I asked from my friends, surfed the web...Here, per my understanding about this campaign is like this....

Dato' Sri Haji Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak is the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia (in position from 2009 until present ), he introduced the 'Satu Malaysia' concept which had been designed by him and launched in September 16th 2010. This programme is still on going until this moment.

"Satu Malaysia" translated in English language is "One Malaysia". The theme is "Rakyat didahulukan, Pencapaian diutamakan"; in English means "People first, Performance now"

If you see the logo, it was built from symbol " 1 " and with the national Jalur Gemilang flag on it. At the bottom of the symbol " 1" there is a word "Malaysia".

The 8 values of the 1 Malaysia are preseverance, a culture of excellence, acceptance, loyalty, education, humility, intergrity and meritocracy.

He called upon the cabinet,civil servants and also the government agencies to more focus on or emphasize on the national unity, ethnic harmony and also the efficient governance.

This campaign was promoted in 2010 in Malaysia and used about RM38 millions to support it.

Business opportunity

In Malaysia, any kinds of events, that area will be ready with the foods fair and also the shopping fair.......

The place of selling area mostly have a big compound of area.

Malaysia is a multi racial country so the opportunity for all the races to sell things are the same.

The business opportunity is every where.

They just put up the big umbrealla or built the tent at that place. Then they will put thiers' items to sell

Of course aome area is free for business, but they will donate some to the temple. Some of them have to pay the fix fees.

All these business owner will do the business according to theirs' sweet time. For this kind of business really cannot have the rain pour season. They just hope the weather always be good, then the customer can come out and buy things from them.

Union Kathina 2011 at Wat Rajchaphohong Teluk Wang

Kathina 2011 was held successfully in this Thai Buddhist temple at Teluk Wang, Ara Kuda. Well ! The Buddhism flags were everywhere. More and more people came after 8.30am, mostly were Chinese and local Thai people.

People came and paid respect to Buddha and Sangha (monks) first. Some people brought thiers' own food to offer to the monks. Most of the poeple are busy in the kitchen. The food mostly put into the big round tray. Buddhist can offer anything to monk to eat. Somehow not to give the fruits which have the seeds for monks to eat. This Hinayana Buddhism cannot eat the foods after 12 noon.

Wow ! In the kitchen ! there were two happily brothers chef, cooked something with the big wok. Everyone were so busy.......One of the auntie, she made this 'glutine dumplings' Ketupat....herself and also she cooked this curry....well ! when the ketupat dipped with this Thai curry....wow ! marvelous !

A monk gave dhamma talk in Dharmasala Hall. Many of them do not understand the Thai language which spoke by the monk. Somehow, one thing very good about was, a Thai speaking translator gave some informations in Hokkien dialect, so that local people did not get lost.

In the hall, many people gave donation by put on the banana tree. There were many robe offerrings items which wrapped with the yellowish paper and put on the long table. Of course there were the main sponsor offering items.
Tak bhat (offerring of foods) by main sponsor family also happened in the hall.

Many devotees went to the dining place to do the Tak Bath. After the monks took the lunch, all the lay people quee up and took the foods and Ulams (fresh salad) with Thai chilli paste....hot !

After the lunch, the main sponsor guiding the group of people (took the offerings items) round the Dhammarsala hall for 3 times and took off the slippers and walk on the tar road. Sponsor offered the kathina robe and some other items to the monks. Then followed by the lay men and lay women. The kathina 2011 programme last at about 2 pm.

Why Buddhist celebrate Kathina ?

The buddhist will give the most supports and also generous in donation for this kind of ceremony, they believe that this meritorious resulted the great happiness and merit towards own good karma in life.

Kathina celebration marked the ended of the 3 months rainny season retreat for the sangha (monks) organization. It also called as "Phansa period". This celebration mostly held in October or November each year.

This ceremony has to be perform only once within one month right after the end of the rainny season retreat, the criteria will be at least 5 monks in the group.

The main Kathina robes can only be presented to the most noble monk who practise well during the rainny season retreat. The noble monk who get this robes will be select base on the discussion by Sangha group.

They also offering the other requisites besides the robes to the monks.

All these offerings need to be willingly give and in happily feelings and the best is the lay people also take the sila (precepts). If both party, the people who receive and people who give also take precepts, then it will be the most meritorious and blessing one.