  urlLink deepavali : the festival of lights, a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. technically it's a hindu festival, but it's considered one of the major public holidays in malaysia. one good thing about a multi-racial society: lots of holidays. november to february is generally considered holiday time, since all the major holidays fall on or around that time - deepavali, christmas, hari raya (or eid-il-fitr ), and chinese new year. but wait, we were talking about deepavali. in malaysia there are two things that symbolize deepavali - first, the lamps, obviously, since it is a festival of lights. on the eve of deepavali, lamps are lit at the doorways and pathways of hindu homes and kept burning all night; hindu belief has it that these lamps are meant as a welcome to whichever deity you wish to visit you.
(and as an aside: yaz, laya, i don't know if you remember, but krishna's second name is actually the name of the hindu goddess of prosperity. if you knew this before, be kind because i only found out about this now. ) the second thing is the kolam - a design drawn on the ground or the floor with colored rice. it's an amazing thing, actually, since the design is usually quite intricate - the link says "floral", but it actually varies widely. last year there was a kolam at the KLCC - a mall near my workplace - that was the size of several rooms. it took an entire classroomfull of students from malaysia's premier art university - the lim kok wing institute - several days to complete it, but it was gorgeous. i took pictures, but i have yet to send them to laya and yaz like i promised. speaking of the kolam , i read something about them a long time ago.
i'm not sure if it's true, but boy, if it is ... at any rate, if i recall correctly: traditionally, the woman of the house is responsible for creating and forming the kolam at the threshold of her home. every evening, she sweeps it away, and the next morning she gets up and - get this - MAKES A NEW ONE. according to the thing i read, this practice was supposed to enhance the virtues of patience and acceptance, and may i just say that you've got to be darn patient to do something like that every. single. day. there's also another deepavali practice in malaysia: the open house. all malaysians, at one time or another, hold an open house - hindus at deepavali, christians at christmas, muslims during hari raya, and the chinese during chinese new year. this is the amazing thing - open house means, quite literally, that their house is open to everyone. strangers are welcomed in and offered food and drinks and hospitality; this is practiced all over malaysia, from the most rural of villages to the urban center of kuala lumpur.
even more amazing is that people are generally respectful of the houses they enter; i don't think i've heard of any cases where people who had an open house were stolen from. i don't think we have an equivalent in the philippines. the closest i can think of is noche buena , but then again, your house isn't really open to everybody - just to friends and family. that, and nobody's really up for visiting anybody except friends and family on noche buena , since it's considered to be a family occasion. and then again, just imagine open house in the philippines. your house would be stripped before you could say merry christmas . 
