My Raya first day

I spent the first day of Raya escorting my father around.

My mother is not here,

She is in Singapore, busy as usual.

My father and me were however used to her not being around on Hari Raya.

Similarly, my father was never with my mother and me on Chinese New Year day.

Anyway, since my father is still recuperating from his illness, I was the one who drove us to Pak Long's house in Denai Alam where his family gathered.

Pak Long is my father's eldest brother.

My father's is an old family.

The youngest of his siblings is Pak Su who is in his mid 40s.

Half of the family were however not there as they don't live in the Klang Valley.

We had the usual raya lunch - ketupat, rendang, serunding, lodeh, etc.

I ate quite a lot.

I was wearing the blue baju kurung that my mother had tailored made for me, and was trying very hard to appear like a nice Malay girl.

I didn't wear my nose stud and refrained from smoking after the meal.

I know, it's pathetic to pretend like that, but I wanted my father to be happy.

He never said anything but I knew that he disapproves of me smoking and looking too outlandish.

Well, it's Hari Raya, so I just had to try my best to be a good daughter.

My father as usual didn't talk much.

It was Pak Long who dominated the conversation as we were having coffee after the lunch.

He is a supporter of the Pas' progressive faction and will join the new party set up by them.

He was very angry with the Pas' ulama leaders and blamed them for the break-up of the Pakatan coalition.

Pak Long knew that my father and his other siblings are mostly pro-establishment, but he still poured out his unhappiness to them.

He said had Pakatan remained together, they will surely win the next general election as Barisan Nasional and Umno in particular are now in disarray due to the fight between PM DS Najib Razak and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

My father and the others mostly listened to Pak Long without contradicting him.

He is after all the eldest and to openly disagree with him could be deemed as kurang ajar.

The conversation however turned very lively when the Low Yat Incident was discussed.

Surprisingly, despite their different political ideologies, they all agreed that the incident was not a straight forward handphone theft case as announced by the authorities.

I don't want to go into the details of their conversation on the matter as some of you may accuse members of my father's family of being a bunch of Malay racists.

Actually they are just Malays with strong jati diri.

My father was the only one who continued being quiet throughout the conversation.

He was probably the only one who realized that there was a half-Chinese in the room.

I kept quiet too.

It was good that my mother was not around.

I'm quite sure she would had a very serious quarrel with her ipar duai if she was there.

Anyway, I'm resting at home now.

Need to sleep early as tomorrow I'm driving my father down to our hometown in Kluang, Johor.

Pa wanted to visit the graves of my grandparents.

Okay, goodnight.