In Javanese culture, sungkem is a symbol of respect to elders and an apology. On Eid day, or here it’s called Idul Fitri or Lebaran, young people will kneel and bow their head to the elders’ knees and asks for forgiveness for any wrongdoings done in the past year.

This is the proper position of "sungkem"

Each year during Eid, we always take time to visit our Muslim family to greet them with “Selamat Lebaran” and ask for forgiveness. As most of them are Javanese, we do the sungkem tradition as well. Evan was not in the mood that day due to a little incident that upset him just before our turn to sungkem, so he ran away. As for Eldrick, this is his first time to do sungkem and he was curious but well behave. Too bad nobody took picture at the “right moment”

After sungkem, we had a big lunch with various traditional Lebaran dishes as ketupat (rice cooked in coconut leaves), opor ayam (chicken stew in coconut milk with tumeric), rendang (beef cooked in spicy coconut milk), various cookies, etc. Again, too bad nobody care to take picture of the food. I guess we were too busy eating.

By the time we went home, Evan was a lot richer than when he came in, thanks to his aunties and uncles

Hope it’s not too late to wish all my Muslim friends “Selamat Idul Fitri! Mohon maaf lahir dan batin”.