Chap Goh Meh
 |
Chap Goh Mei
Chap Goh Mei or Chap Goh Meh or Tzap Goh Mei (Chinese: 十五暝; pinyin: shí wǔ míng; lit. 'fifteen night') is fondly referred to the fifteenth and final day of the Lunar New Year festival celebrated by Chinese migrant communities mainly in South East Asia countries i.e. Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Philipine which have an essential population of Chinese descendant from southern China provinces of Fujian and Teochew. The term is from the Hokkien dialect or Teochew dialect that literally means "the night of the fifteenth day" of the Lunar Chinese New Year.
In traditional Chinese culture, it is also celebrated as the Lantern Festival or the [[In Southeast Asia, however, it coincides with the Chinese Valentine's Day.[1] In Malaysia, it is also a time the 抛柑(pāo gān) ("tangerine throwing") custom that originated in Penang is popularly practised, when young unmarried women gather to toss tangerines into the sea or pond, in a hope that it will be picked up by their future spouse. In the past, poems and names were written on the [[tangerine] skin but in this modern day, it was replaced by by the telephone number or email address. Those days, was also the only day that unmarried ladies could be seen with their acquaintance they get to know. The occasion is also marked by feasting and various festivities, including the consumption of tangyuan and Kue Keranjang delicacies in Malaysia.
In some part in the southern part of Malaysia, like in the city of Muar in Johor, during the festival, drove of Teochew devotees will throng to congregate to pray at the temple and to observe a traditional custom called "Puak Tau Sai"(博豆狮) where devotees seeking the divine deity’s blessing for the new year to obtain home the “peanut lions”(Chinese guardian lions statue made of sugar and peanut) but is to repay back the “peanut lions” statues to the deity and temple the next coming year but in double the number of statues they obtained. The quest to obtain the “peanut lions” will be decided through the “toss of the victory cups”(博胜杯) to ascertain the divine’s will of the deity.