Celebrating My Balinese Birthday

According to our Balinese lunar calendar (Pawukon) , a year consist of 210 days. So, you can say that a Balinese person celebrate his or her birthday every 210 days or 30 weeks.

And today it happened to be my Balinese birthday.

Don't get me wrong. We still celebrate our normal birthday. We celebrate about 3 birthdays in a year (365-day-calendar): two Balinese birthdays and 1 normal birthday.(Woo hoo! lots of gift! I wish) And, needless to say, our Balinese birthday does not usually happen at the same time as our normal birthday.

My Balinese birthday today was quite different though since it took place just two days before my normal birthday, I have never actually had my two birthdays close to each other.

So, what do we do during our Balinese birthday? Well, we don't conduct any birthday party on Balinese birthday. We just made a little offerings and pray to God and ancestors.

To begin with, I went with my family to the family temple which was located in the northern part of our house. At the temple, we prayed together. Here are some photos in my Balinese birthday.

Briefly, the birthday ritual started with cleansing the body and the soul which done symbolically with water (washing hands with water). Then there was a holy water and rice as symbol of the blessing from the God. I also had to wear a bracelet made white thread. The meaning of white thread bracelet is a straight determined mind.

And that's how I celebrated my Balinese birthday today. Every Balinese person celebrate their Balinese birthday by praying to the God and ancestors. They don't hold any party or invite any people, it's just a little ritual with the family.

Note that we also have our normal birthday. This is when usually the party is held mainly by young people. In Bali, most people don't actually have any real birthday party with balloons, birthday cake and candle. Usually it's just a small celebration with their family.

What about you? Do you usually have birthday party?