Chinese New Year

• Most important Chinese festival in Malaysia.

• 15 days
• Cleaning up
• Display traditional New Year's decorations (red colour )
• Red colour brings good luck , scare away spirits of bad
fortune.
• Reunion dinner (New Year’s Eve)
• Fireworks will be launched to celebrate the coming of the
New Year as well as to drive away the evil.  
• Children and teenagers traditionally receive red envelope
(‘ang pow’)
• Mandarin oranges are very popular during this festival, and
every house you visit will give you an orange.
Hari Raya Aidilfitri
• Marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. 
• Workers in the city will return to their home town (Balik
kampung) to celebrate with their families and will ask
forgiveness from parents and other elders.
• On the morning of Hari Raya, Muslims perform prayers at
the mosque while children ask for forgiveness from their
parents.
• The little ones will also be given ‘duit raya’ or gifts of
money in small green packets.
• Open house (friends and neighbors of other races are
invited to share conversation, laughter and a variety of
cookies, candy and traditional delicacies.)
• Traditional Malay food (rendang, ketupat, and lemang) is
served.
Deepavali
• Festivals of Lights. 
• Celebrated on the Hindu month of Kartik in October /
November.
• Several days before the celebration of Deepavali the houses
of the Hindus are cleaned from top to bottom.
• The entrances of Hindu homes are decorated with the
‘kolam’, a form of drawing that is drawn by using rice flour,
chalk, chalk powder or rock powder.
• This is because many believe that the Goddess Lakshimi
(Goddess of wealth) would only enter a home with a ‘kolam’
at the entrance.
• On Deepavali morning, many Hindu devotees awaken before
sunrise for the ritual herbal oil bath.They put on new clothes
then go to the temples where prayers are held in
accordance with the ceremonial rites.
• The rest of the day they distribute cakes and sweets to their
neighbours and friends and many have "open house" for
their non-Hindu friends.
Gawai Dayak
• Ritual ceremony. The rituals were presided over by the elderly in the
village and foreshadowed the harvest of the next year with the tribe's
fortunes. After the ritual ceremony is "kick" (NYETAH PINTU)
ceremony. Before the ceremony began, each household will close the
door and a villager who is holding a Parang will knock the door. The
family will give a small cup of the rice wine. This symbolizes the new
year, every household will welcome friends and relatives come to
celebrate.
• Lemang (Bamboo rice) is one of the traditional dishes that must be
made during the festival. It is made of glutinous rice, vegetables, fish,
meat and seasonings in bamboo, and baked for half an hour with
firewood.
• Iban people dance. This dance is a strong man dancing with several
girls. The culmination of the dance is the strong man using his teeth
to bite a dozen kilograms of wooden to shows his strength.
• Visit the Longhouse (Rumah Panjang). Aborigines welcome
foreigners to their participation. The guests will be invited to sit in the
central seat of the long house, and then each family will serve their
Dayak food to the guests, and also their own brewing sweet rice wine
(called as Tuak), as guests of outsiders must drink, otherwise
regarded as disrespectful.
 tuak

lemang
• Kadazandusun will wear traditional and unique design of the black
national costumes, embroidered with colorful beads, gold, and silver
thread.
• The traditional beauty contest (Unduk Ngadau) is to commemorate
the daughter of their gods. Most of the Kadazandusun are farmers.
They had a severe dry season, and the crops were dead. They asked
God to help them through. God sacrificed his daughter, made her into
rain, rivers, seeds and so on. In order to commemorate her, the
Kadazandusun will choose a beautiful girl to symbolize the daughter
of God.
• Drink rice wine, bull race, tug of war, Suma dance, slingshot game,
wrench wrist, step on stilts and so are the celebration of Tadau
Kaamatan.
• Sabah's rice wine is called Tapai or Lihing, and is made from
harvested rice. Aboriginal compatriots are pre-brewed before harvest,
and there are many taboos, such as can not speak, can not be angry,
and can not touch acidic food. In Sabah, the wine is not poured into a
goblet or a small bowl of wine, but in a large porcelain urn with a
bamboo tube for sucking.
 Unduk
Ngadau

Lihing