FOR THE PAST few days, Partner and I are discussing wedding traditions. I’m Bruneian he’s Malaysian. We’ve found out that really Brunei and Malaysian traditions are very much different. I first noticed this at a cousin’s wedding ceremony which was really a packed thing – both engagement and ‘nikah’ at the same time. During her nikah, there was a mix-up of traditions and I noticed that some confused relatives from his side were miffed and some just chuckled it away.
I guess in Malay tradition, protocol is an issue. What more when there are two different kinds of protocol. They are – Your Family Protocol and His Family Protocol. Balancing these two is really not so much work as long as both sides have already practised a good amount of compromise with each other.
So I did some research. The ‘exchange of gifts’ ceremony is a big thing in Malay culture. While there are Malaysian traditions for exchanging seven or nine dulangs/hantarans (gifts) or the ‘wang hantaran’ or money gift amounting to a strict RM$9999 in one state, Bruneian traditions are really about beauty, art and practicality – what gifts will be of good use for years to come. There is no strict number – just as long as the number of gifts must be an odd number.
Eventhough culture demands it, there are gifts which really do not apply today. Take for instance, the ‘sirih junjung’ ( a gift of betel leaves – used to please the elders who in the old days loved chewing these things. They didn’t have Juicyfruit back then). I’ve told Mum to please never ask this for my wedding. I think its wasteful, I read somewhere that its carcinogenic and I don’t even chew it and neither do my parents. I don’t care how tall it is and how many roses look lovely with it, if it’s impractical and a waste, its going to be pretty ugly in my books.
I’ve seen pretty beautiful hantarans lately as well as pretty funny ones too. An uncle of mine married this woman who loved baking. So go figure. Along with the usual gifts of songkok and songket, there were five cakes, all miraculously prepared single-handedly by this woman who was supposed to be busy with everything else before her wedding. Talk about love.
I’m still researching on this. Yet deep down I already know, exchanging gifts is more than just trays and displaying beautiful pretty things. It’s more of a symbolism that relationships and marriages are really about the concept of ‘give and take’, a balance where the two people will have to work on all the time for the rest of their lives.
On that note, I’d give a Bell & Ross watch and I’d take something from Chanel! Hahahaha!