Raya Riders, Mat Rempits and the Angels

For those of you who don't know much about Malaysia, this time of year is the season of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the celebration of the end of the Holy fasting month of Ramadan. The Hari Raya has the same immense power of social focus as that of Christmas back in the UK. You can be sure that during the Raya period, everyone in Malaysia, especially the Muslim majority, will be busy doing the same things - preparing and eating food, watching special programmes on TV, wearing colourful traditional clothes, and of course visiting each others' houses.

These house visits, or Open Houses as they are usually called, start right from the first day of the Raya, and can last throughout the following Muslim month of Syawal, In practice, though, most open house visits, at least in my part of town, tend to happen in the few days following the first day of the Raya, which this year fell on the 1st October.

The Open House seems to be a uniquely Malaysian phenomenon - almost all of the major religious festivals now have them - Chinese New Year, Christmas and Deepavali, and the Open House concept is intended as a social, religious and even political leveller. Everyone goes to each other's houses during these times regardless of their social or cultural background.

Even the Prime Minister of Malaysia holds a huge open house, but I guess there are too many people who want to see him for it to be held in his actual house, so the PM holds his at a major Kuala Lumpur hall. And the Chief Minister of Sarawak even holds his Raya Open House in the local sports stadium.

But the rest of us hoi polloi are content to hold our open houses in, well, our own houses! Yesterday, my wife and I went on the first round of Raya visits, and tomorrow is the day of our own open house.

Now I am going to be a little bit naughty here and, rather than give you a blow by blow account of the Raya Open House, I am going to save that bit to another posting and rather describe a typical Raya phenomenon which in many ways epitomises the spirit of the Hari Raya as it is practiced in many of Malaysia's Muslim areas.

Now, as you can imagine, if everyone is visiting each other for the Raya, they have to get themselves around somehow! Many people of course drive their cars, like us, and a lot of people take buses, if they can.

But, those who don't have access to such modern luxuries as cars and buses must fall back on that other staple of South East Asian transportation: the motorbike. And, during the Raya, the roads, especially the rural ones, are festooned and clogged by a veritable mobile army: the Raya Riders!

The Raya Riders are mostly young men and women who get on their motorbikes to visit their friends and families during the Raya Open House season. You will see them, usually riding in clumps of ten or twenty, or waiting at the side of the road for more to join their convoys, all dressed in brightly coloured traditional costumes that definitely break the traffic laws, but somehow look so right at this time of year. Imagine riding a motorbike in heels, or simple rubber slippers! Very dangerous, you might be thinking. Yes, but very Raya!

In the rural areas, in the kampungs where the roads are often so narrow you can only get a motorbike though anyway, the Raya Riders are in their element - sliding between the paddy fields with happy smiles on their faces, calling to each other on their mobiles, the colourfully-dressed girls with long flowing black hair poking out from behind their helmets (if they are wearing helmets at all that is!), and the boys with their Malay songkoks (hats) plastered down precariously atop their wind-blown faces, and definitely no helmets!

Often there are two or three to a bike but in the kampungs, the rules are waived, it seems, because the cops are nowhere to be seen - they are visiting their relatives' houses in the next village probably, and in many cases they are riding their bikes too!

This afternoon, on the way home from work, I passed a posse of the Raya Riders going towards town, all young, gaily coloured people and this time wearing their crash helmets like good boys and girls, because it was the main road. There was a happy innocence about them, like the bicycle rides I used to go on when I was a little boy.

How different this was from the last time I passed a gang of young people on bikes, when I went to see my son in KL recently. On that occasion, we were driving along the motorway at 2.30 in the morning when we were suddenly surrounded on both sides by 40 or 50 of Malaysia's very own Hells Angels, the Mat Rempit.

The Mat Rempit are a particularly Malaysian expression of male motorbike madness, and are very much the opposite of the Raya Riders, although they share some of the same characteristics (and members, I'm sure) in that they ride motorbikes, they are Malaysian, and often break the rules.

The Mat Rempits who zoomed past us in KL that morning were doing all the usual crazy Mat Rempit things, like weaving from right to left like stunt riders, zooming along doing wheelies like Evel Keneivel, and even hanging onto the handlebars and letting their legs flail outwards behind them!

But for some reason, the Mat Rempits, and especially their more peaceful seasonal counterparts the Raya Riders, just don't hack it in the Evil Biker Attitude stakes compared to the Hells Angels back home. I mean come on, folks, how can a young Malay rich kid doing handlebar stands on his souped up moped, or a Raya Rider going along kampung roads without a helmet hope to compete with the serious, mean-looking, hard-staring black leather-clad, bearded and tattooed Angels on their grumbling steel horses?

I mean, it's like Datuk Siti Nurhaliza recording an album with Metallica!

Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin to all my Malaysian readers (both of them), and may all riders ride safely, whatever your flavour!