Weddings and funerals in lil red dot are elaborate events.
We have 4 major ethnic groups; Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasians (Others).
Each ethnic group has their own respective elaborate traditions.
For weddings, the Chinese will have the extraordinary gate crashing regime.
The groom arrives very early in the morning in accordance with their traditional auspicious hour that bodes wedded bliss for the couple to fetch his bride for tea offering to his and her parents.
The games played by bridesmaid of honor and female friends include bartering with the groom for red packets of lucky money as hong bao.
Values can be $88, $188, $288, $388, $488 etc before the ladies opens the home gates for groom to fetch his bride.
Games will be played too. Such games can be eating funny stuff or producing things such as a knick knack for gate entry.
After which the wedded couple breezes off to get solemnized or church wedding, followed by lunch and a really elaborate Chinese banquet dinner of 8 to 10 courses served with lots of wine, beer or hard liquor.
The wedded couple has to go to each table of 10 guests to get toasted for the happy occasion.
Such banquet dinners are held in 5 star hotels and can have 100 tables or 1,000 people attending.
At its minimum, there would be 300 people.
Rarely it is under 10 tables as both bride and groom will have friends and relatives. Relatives can be widely classified to be extended to include distant relatives.
Each cannot leave out any family member else such left out family members may feel slighted i.e. not good enough to be invited.
Yes, weddings are about “face” as in ego and pride.
The more elaborate is one’s wedding, it means good wealth and a rich standard.
Malay weddings are very much communal in nature and held at void decks of HDB flats or we call government housing.
The elaborately dressed couple with headress and baju kurung for the bride and songkok with sarong over pants and a sizzling bright colored shirt.
Drums and ornate palm like fronds will accompany the couple to the void deck that is ornately decorated, complete with a throne for the couple.
The bride’s hand will be painted with henna designs and it is beautiful.
The all day feasting will continue and friends or just about anyone can have the buffet of nasi briyani, rendang, curry chicken etc all cooked in huge gigantic pots with oars or paddles like those used for boats!
Indian weddings can last weeks or months as they relatives in India. Food, clothes and events at the temple are grand and awesome.
The same with funerals. The most long drawn and elaborate funerals are for the Chinese. Wakes can last 1 day, 3 days, 5 days or 7 days complete with opera, taoists or monks chanting, feasting, mahjong and offerings of paper money, paper clothes, paper computers, paper everything including a maid and a butler!
After the funeral, prayers and ceremonial offerings are done on 7, 49 and 100 days from death occuring. This is to help the soul or spirit move on.
Malay and Indian funerals are within the day affair. Muslims are buried without coffins but just wrapped in a holy shroud.
Indians are cremated but not on funeral pyres here but in crematoriums.
This is followed by family members mourning with relatives in their homes, low key and without fanfare but with lots of prayers.
These are just a sprinkling of our local lil red dot customary traditions for weddings and funerals…2 important events in one’s lives.