Nurkhayrul Salam
BRUNEI-MUARA
THE Kite Festival held in Tungku beach yesterday offers a host of activities to attract the whole family Hosted by the Brunei Kite Association,the annual Kite Festival and Family Fun Day, aim to heighten awareness of the great importance of preserving kite flying as one of Brunei‘s traditional games.
According to the chairman of the Brunei Kite Association, Hj Maidin Hj Ahmad, the only way to do this is by fostering this heritage among Brunei‘s youth.
‘Children have a natural curiosity which leads them to learn, adults can add a great deal to their children‘s development by providing interesting playthings and the kite festival provides this opportunity, ‘ he said in his welcoming remarks.
Just as well, the Tungku beach was swarmed with kite enthusiast as well as onlookers. Aside from children‘s events and kite competition; there was a display of different type of traditional kites which was meant to educate youngsters.
Aa representative from the association told The Brunei Times that preparation for the festival started a week before and the outcome has been phenomenal especially because there were more children participating in the contest than in previous years.
‘More than a dozen children signed up for thekite flying competition this year. The most popular event is the Parachute Piata event, with more than 70 participants and for the first time we had to turn down children wanting to enter the already full colouring contest,‘ he said.
The Parachute Piata event which involves parachutes sailing down the sky releasing hundreds of candy which the children would try to grab. Prizes await for those who were able to get the candies with tags on them.
Even youngster who did not participate in the events were delighted by the beautiful kites soaring in the air. Their enthusiasm rubbed off on the elderly too, among whom was Pg Damit, a businessman who came along with his children.
‘Before I got married, festivals like this used to be a fun, but somewhere down the years I lost all interest. But now I introduce it to my kids and they are seem to be interested in it. With all the kites flying all around, I could not help myself from trying my hands on it too,‘ he said.
Tini, a homemaker who bought her two children to the kite festival left home as early as six am to secure shady parking. ‘This has been an entertaining weekend for me and my kids. They are very happy. I‘ve entered them into all the children‘s event and they are having fun.‘
However for Hasli, 30, who has been flying kites since he was a young boy expressed his anguish at the decline of the popularity of kite flying. ‘When I was a young boy, I didn‘t have to wait for a festival like this to fly kites. Back when I was living at Kampong Ayer, you can see children and adults flying kites everyday, those were the good old days,‘ he reminisced.
‘Kite flying is not hard, everyone can play this sport, all you need is paper, strings and a little bit of imagination,‘ he added. The Brunei Times
Source: www.bruneitimes.com (6 Agustus 2007)
