I Spoke My Mind Out: Oh Salako, what is happening?

Gawai, Jun 1, is a date with a prolong celebrations among all Salako people. During this Gawai Festival celebrations, there is a lot other celebrations coming too, because of the long mid-term schools holidays. So every Salako is taking advantages of the long school holiday to make  celebrations such as arranging a marriage ceremony, batenek, basunat, bata'ah and so on. Almost everyday, from the day of the first week of gawai festival there will be invitations cards, and also the "pangaap" ( person or persons entrusted to invite from house to house) coming to your house. All I can say its a weeks of free meal, lots of foods and drinks.

Gawai, itself is a festival of celebrations for the end of paddy harvesting seasons. It is celebrated to give thanks to the "Sumangat Padi" because Paddy is the main staple foods of the Dayaks and we can say that paddy is the most respected "Foods" in the Dayaks community.

So, Gawai is a festival and a celebrations, and it is one of the Dayaks identity in Malaysia. From every corner of Malaysia, every Dayaks community is flocking home to celebrate the Gawai Festival. Most major town in Sarawak will be crowed with people returning home, and as to say, a shopping spree is happening too. From the poor  to the wealthy, all will spend to buy foods such as chickens, porks, tid-bits, soft drinks and yeep...surely the beers and liquor.

What make me think about my own people attitude towards modernization in making their celebrations. It is not a traditions of a Salako customary, but it is creeping very fast into our society and it really making a very "scary" and drastic changes towards our people mentality. As to say, during gawai holidays there will lots of other celebrations taking place too, and one of it is the marriage ceremony. During this celebrations, lots of unwanted activities is taking places too. Two major event that never missed are the gambling, especially the "Holo game" and the "fun fair". What a shame all this activities is making it grip towards our small communities.

It is sad to know that our own colourful culture are being left behind because of the so called "Modernization". What will happened to our colourful culture? Why we need to change the source of our pride?