Goh Dai Lai – Passing the Dowry Ceremony

If you guys don’t already know, I’m getting married! Well, legally I’m married, but technically, following the Chinese custom, I’m not. For those in the know, in the Chinese custom, a few weeks before the ceremony, there’s another ceremony we call ‘Goh Dai Lai’, which means the passing of dowry from the groom’s family to the bride’s family. Some people might not practise this anymore, but our family still does. Here is Saucer bearing gifts!

Saucer and gifts

The common items in the gift box includes lots and lots of wedding biscuits, some meat (replaced with dried meat here), soft drinks, some joss sticks, and of course the big ang pow.

Lotus seed flavoured biscuits from Kam Ling restaurant

He ordered the biscuits from Kam Ling restaurant, possibly the oldest, most prominent and largest restaurant in Kampar. They smelled so very GOOD right out from the oven!

250 pieces of biscuits

I could smell them even from the back of the house, and I couldn’t resist eating them. But of course, I didn’t! They need to be presented to our ancestors first.

Red bean flavoured biscuits

After the praying ceremony, we quickly grabbed a piece of red and a piece of the yellow coloured biscuits to try. I loved the yellow one (red bean filling) more! The skin was pastry based and so very thin and flaky, while the filling was firm and compact with perfect flavour. Plus, eating it while it’s still warm made a whole lot of difference to the taste!

Soft drinks

Red packets $$$

It is a custom to put red packets on every single basket of gift, for prosperity, I guess? Everything with Chinese has to be RED.

Red packets on biscuits

Main gift box

And now, what we are doing next is to prepare for the actual day ceremony and dinner! That’s going to be another headache, but thankfully I have my family and friends to help me in the process.

P/S: Ever wondered how the proposal happened? Pssst, it’s coming up in one of the next posts!

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