Kuningan Celebration

Balinese believe that Kuningan is the day when the Gods accompanied by the ancestors come to visit the earth, but only until noon (12.00). On this day the Hindus are suggested to do self-introspection by doing a meditation for human's prosperity. Kuningan falls ten days after Galungan Day in Bali just like Sraddha Wijaya Dasami in India in which both equally contain ancestral worship and last for ten days.

People in Bali will prepare certain offerings for this day : selanggi, tebog, endongan, that decorates the house. Segehan Agung is placed on the house yard. A typical content of the offering presented on Kuningan day is yellow fragrant steamed rice dressed up with fried red bean sprout, peeled peanut and sauced grated coconut or saur.

Certainly, when the praying is over there would be a delicious modestly cuisine accompanied with other side dish as ingredients in the offerings. Having prayed at the family ancestral shrines, devotees also make their time to pay homage to general temples which festival falls on Kuningan Day. They may go on this pilgrimage with their family or wider family in the clan associate temple. This pilgrimage is called maturan or tangkil in Balinese language.

Since we are in Yokohama where there is so small number of Balinese society and even the non-Balinese Indonesian living here might not be aware of this Kuningan Day, we took the simplest steps to celebrate the Kuningan's Day last Saturday, October 15.
The most important thing comes first: making the yellow rice for the offering. It's not the "real" yellow rice since we bought the instant Indian yellow rice pack at the Thailand Store in Bandobashi and cooked it by the rice cooker (to me yellow rice should consist of the turmeric, galangal, bay leave, lemon grass, coconut milk and be cooked by the steamer and be cone-shaped, but we DO NOT have all these luxuries of cooking in Japan afterall). After that aji prepared the yellow rice for the offering then we prayed together at home. As soon as the pray was over, we then enjoyed the yellow rice with omelet and hot-and-sweet potato chips that Nini (my mother) sent us and fried chicken. Not a fancy way for a celebration, though.

We, just like those who are fasting during the Ramadhan in Yokohama, surely miss our relatives and wish to be able to celebrate and pray together with them. Kakiang and Niang (Sandy's parents) must have been very busy to prepare the celebration back there in Singaraja. We are hoping that the next Kuningan we'll be there with them soon.