Eid is just in a matter of 1 or 2 days more. While there are different ways of celebrating it among Muslims in different nations throughout the world, still it one of the most celebrated festival in the Muslim world. However there’s catch, over the centuries the way of celebrating it has become too static, or should I say it tends to get boring all this time. Now I think what if we make a change to make it more interesting? By the way the suggestions below is made based on Malaysian Muslim’s view on Eid (a.k.a. ‘raya’ locally). Keep reading after the break.
Five ways of celebrating Eid, from otaku point of view:
1. Cosplay
When I mean cosplay here, of course I’m talking about the one that you can wear to go to Eid morning prayer, the one that you don’t have to discard too much to enable you to go to the mosque, and most importantly it covers your aurat so that you can pray. Of course you could wear gloves and boots too (though you’d still need to put them off in order to pray, except for head wear, as long as they don’t get in the way when you are in prostration position a.k.a. ‘sujud’) but no, don’t wear wigs during this time. Imagine wearing your Storm Troopers armor minus the helmet, the gloves and the boots, or you could wear your Darth Vade costume minus the helmet, gloves and boots too but you can still wear the mantel and you may replace the helmet with ‘songkok’. And you could as well wear a ‘samping’ too. Sorry girls but you can’t cosplay as Miku Hatsune during this time and yeah its too bad anime characters with veils (tudung) is almost non-existent, not to mention most female anime characters are sexy. Wearing kimono to replace your ‘baju kurung’ and ‘baju kebaya’ won’t help either since it would be too obvious because most conservative folks would see it as ‘too Japanese’ instead of relating it with anime (the don’t know what anime is to begin with). So girls, all that left to you might be wearing your raya dresses with color-theme associated with certain anime characters, such as black and green for Miku Hatsune, or if you’re creative enough you may redesign your favorite cosplay costumes to look like baju kurung/kebaya (for a sample, see the image at the bottom of this article). By the way you may still wear cosplay costumes for visiting friends during this time but certainly not for going to the mosque for Eid morning prayer.
2. Replace lemang with sushi rolls
Lemang is is a Malay traditional food consisting of glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk in bamboo sticks which the innerside of the bamboo stick has been layered with banana leaves prior to the cooking process, which would wrap around the glutinous rice once they’re cooked. Lemang usually served in slices around 1-inch thick and usually eaten with ‘rendang’. Their rounded shape and the banana leaves that wrapped around them very much resembling sushi rolls wrapped around with seaweed. So I guess otaku would love to see this happen.
3. Replace Ketupat with Onigiri
Ketupat is another Malay traditional food, consisting of glutinous rice(man Malay do have lots of food consisting of glutinous rice a.k.a. ‘pulut’), or sometimes the normal rice, also cooked with coconut milk but instead being wrapped inside bamboo sticks they’re packed inside coconut leaf pouches, usually 2x2x1 inches in size that is made in a special way, giving ketupat a distinctive form of rice dumplings. They’re also usually eaten with ‘rendang’, usually served by cutting them into four symmetrical slices, or cut diagonally into two triangular-shaped slices. While onigiri (Japanese rice balls) is not really rounded like a ball (usually more triangular in shape) they share some similarities with ketupat, which I think otaku would love to see onigiri being served during Eid too.
4. Replace rendang with nikujaga
Rendang is yet another Malay traditional food, which I’ve been mentioned a few times earlier. It is a type of ‘Malaysian curry’ (although the recipe usually has no ‘real’ curry being used). It is consisting of meat (beef/chicken/duck/mutton, everything but fish and seafood) cooked with coconut milk, various herbs and spices including chillies, which gives it a spicy taste. OK, they have no shared similarity with nikujaga except they’re made of meat, so I guess otaku would love to see nikujaga to replace this too. Besides nikujaga is relatively easier to cook too because it’s pretty much “beef soup/stew with potatoes and soy sauce”.
5. Greet your guests and visitors with ‘irashai’ together with the salam and Eid greetings
This is perhaps the least and easiest thing to do to celebrate raya/Eid in the otaku way. Usually during Eid when people come to our house they will give us a salam and wishes “selamat hari raya” (literally ‘”happy Eid”). During this moment you could say “irashaimase” or “youkoso” to them, followed by “douzo, douzo” to seat them. And if it’s you the one who pays a visit you could say “gomen kudasai” or “ojama shimasu” to the host.
How’s that? Alright, cosplaying in raya/Eid might be too striking, and greeting ‘irashai’ would sound too awkward too but if you’re really an otaku you wouldn’t care, right? Or perhaps you have better idea? Last but not least, Happy Eid and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri from me, maaf zahir dan batin.
