Ties that bind
The Peranakan Museum in Armenian Street lies on the slopes of Fort Canning Hill. Once home to the Tao Nan School, this sprawling three-storey building now showcases Peranakan cultures in the Straits Settlements of Melaka, Penang and Singapore, as well as those of related communities throughout Southeast Asia.
Before long, the mesmerising collection of photographs on the first and second floor galleries together with the exhibits on display in the other parts of the museum begin to give me a glimpse into the festival that best reinforces the tenets of filial piety and gratitude to the elders and ancestors.
In the weeks leading to sambot taon, prosperous Peranakan families give gifts of dress material and jewellery to their relatives and employees as a goodwill gesture of sharing abundance and surplus. This is often seen as a continuation of a custom in ancient China, where people exchanged premium tea and fruits with each other during the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Gifts of certain food items bear symbolic meaning to the Chinese. For example, the word for orange or tangerine has the same intonation as gold in most Chinese dialects. As such, receiving a basketful of these popular citrus fruits is akin to getting one that’s filled with gold.
Preparations for sambot taon begin in earnest on Chinese Lunar New Year eve. This is the time when the womenfolk in the house are at their busiest, laying out symbolic items of productivity and prosperity on the altars to appease the departed and the deities, and cooking up a storm for the reunion dinner.
On the main prayer table there would usually be three combs of pisang raja arranged in the fashion of a blooming lotus, 15 sticks of skinned sugarcane of equal lengths neatly stacked into a pyramid and 12 of the best and juiciest mandarin oranges raised three levels high. These offerings would be banded with red paper that has been carefully cut to give them interesting patterns and serrated edges.
A fresh pot of rice would be cooked after the reunion dinner, where a portion would later be scooped into a dessert bowl and placed on the altar, while the remainder would be left overnight in the kitchen to signify surplus from the year before. Uncooked rice and water storage containers are also filled to the brim with this same intention.
Prospects for the future are interpreted from the colour of the mould growing on the rice just before the altar is cleared on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, a date that coincides with the return of the Kitchen God after making his annual report about each family member’s behaviour to the Jade Emperor in Heaven. The colour of orange, black or both signify good, bad or a combination of both prospects respectively.
The final evening prayers are held as a precursor to the main ceremony on Lunar New Year morning. After that, new candles replace the burnt out ones and the floor is given its last mop as cleaning or sweeping it on Lunar New Year’s day would be tantamount to removing all the good luck and prosperity for the house and its occupants. The same goes with clearing debts accumulated during the year with those within the household as well as outsiders.
Once everything has been done to the satisfaction of the matriarch, the main door would be bolted shut and would only be opened when the auspicious hour to sambot taon arrives the next day. In the olden days, this practice was a convenient excuse for everyone to hit the sack early and wake up fresh.
The appropriate time to sambot taon varies but in general it’s always within two hours after 6am. The first act involves switching on all the lights in the house to attract good luck. After their baths, family members would put on new clothes that have been made months ahead and join the patriarch as he opens the main door and offer prayers to deities at the altar.
After planting joss sticks in urns and burning joss paper folded in the shape of ancient Chinese gold ingots, everyone would gather outside to set off firecrackers to signify the end of prayers, ward off evil spirits and, more importantly, create a mood of joyous festivity.
Back indoors, family members, in order of seniority, take turns to pay respect to their elders. In a practice seldom seen today, the men would kneel and bow their heads while the ladies squat with their hands clasped and feet together.
The younger members would then wish their seniors panjang umor, murah jereki (long life and abundant prosperity) and in return receive blessings like chepat besair (grow healthily), panday surat (excel in studies), untong slalu (profitable business) and rengan jodoh (ease of finding a life partner).
Elders already in advanced years or in ill health usually prefer wishes of badan kuat- kuat (good health) over panjang umor (prolonged life). As a reward, they’d hand out ang pows (red packets containing money) to unmarried adults and children. In their first year of marriage, newly-wed couples receive a pair of red candles in lieu of ang pows for good luck.
In the olden days, children would be tasked with delivering homemade delicacies in a bakol siah (lacquered basket) to their Malay and Indian neighbours who would in turn return the receptacle filled with fruits and sweets. This tradition kept alive the practise of reciprocating gifts received during Hari Raya and Deepavali.
This symbolic gesture of mutual respect to people of other races in our multi-cultural society is still practised today. However, plain-looking plastic containers are used these days in place of the richly decorated bakol siah which has become a valuable collectors’ item.