Give a Gift in My Neighbourhoodn

Give a Gift in My Neighbourhood

            My house is in a suburb area near Surakarta City, the area usually called Palur It include in Karanganyar Regency area but it more closer to the Surakarta City, it’s seven kilometre east side of Solo City centre. Like other suburbs area, Palur is mixed between city and village life. For the example there are lot of housing residence in the area but the resident lifestyle is mixed with village life on the area. It’s mixed the traditional culture lifestyle with modern culture, especially workers lifestyle.

            The lifestyle is including the gift gifting etiquettes. There are some etiquettes of gift gifting in my neighbourhood area. The first is gift gifting when there is a ceremony. There are some traditional ceremony like; wedding, khitanan, mitoni, selapanan, birthday, etc. Usually people who held the ceremony send box of food to their neighbours. This box of food can be mean the express of thanks and to shared the sender joy with the neighbour. People who send box of food also can be mean as an invitation. For example people who will hold khitanan or selapanan ceremony will send box of food to the neighbourhood to inform that their child has born or has been khitan. It’s not a formal invitation but it’s a sign and will make the neighbour visit the sender house to give congratulations. The gift gifting as invitation has etiquette, it must shared to the entire neighbour, if not sometimes it make uncomfortable feeling between neighbours.

            For wedding ceremony process there are etiquettes for gift gifting. First family which will hold wedding ceremony will ask their neighbours to help them in wedding ceremony process. They will send gift to their neighbour as a sign to inform that they will held event and ask their help, the gift not only box of food  sometimes also can be fabric or cloth that will used in the ceremony. In the wedding ceremony invitation usually family suggest to not bring gift to their house, but if there are some people who bring and give gifts in the house, the family mustn’t reject the gift. After the wedding ceremony the family will send gift to their neighbours who help the wedding ceremony, they will gift various things; it can be food, oil, rice, sugar, etc. After the wedding there are also an evaluation meeting of wedding ceremony committee, after the meeting the family will send a plate of black glutinous rice porridge as express of thanks to their neighbour because the wedding ceremony is succeed.

             In my neighbourhood there is a tradition to share the extra food to the neighbour. For the example if there is a family who hold an event such as prayers, or meeting they will share if there are extra food to their neighbour. Sometimes the host of event in the neighbourhood will make the food more than the number of expected guest; they also make food to share with their neighbour. It also can be shared the food among neighbour, sometimes there is some people who shared gift or food to their neighbours without specific purpose; they just shared to the others.

            In my neighbourhood there is some etiquette for receiving gift. The main etiquette is simple we just must not reject the gift. Reject a gift can hurt the feeling of gift sender; it also can make uncomfortable feeling between sender and receiver who reject the gift. There is no obligation to reply the gift which received. It’s depending on the receiver to reply or not the gift. But it’s also common in my neighbour to shared gift each other.