Day 10 - Layang-Layang

The team was promptly greeted by the morning sun when we opened the front door of the Pink House. It felt great to know that we have already completed painting all the houses and that we were having an off day! (: After a sumptuous breakfast, we began the making of kites by shaving long and uneven bamboo sticks into slimmer and rounder ones. The process of shaving was actually more tedious than expected, because of the precise dimensions we have to achieve in order to bend the bamboo strips into the shapes that we wanted. As such, we spent the entire morning doing so, and only managed to fix and tie the sticks into the shape of a traditional malay kite (with exception of Ming Xian, who persisted in making a butterfly-shaped kite, that resembles an aeroplane more than anything else) by late afternoon. And oh, just to reiterate my previous point, kite making is really harder than imagined.

Once the frames of the kites were up, the team eagerly covered them with coloured papers and glue. On top of that, we also put on our thinking caps and came up with creative designs for our personalised kites. For instance, Sijie decorated his kite with the logo of the PEWANIS, and the latter was extremely pleased by his final product. At the end of the day, everyone of us was beaming with smiles when we finally finished the kites. I believe we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves under the tutelage and guidance of Abang Lan (our kite making Cikgu), who sacrificed his day by coaching us and doing countless QCs (Quality Checks) on our kite skeletons.

Ming Xian and I with our completed art works that we are so proud of till now! Anyway, River claimed that the sea turtle ('Penyu' in Bahasa Melayu) on my kite looks like a dragon fruit when viewed from the other side. ):

Although it was just a simple kite making process, the amount of time we spent and the effort we placed in have far surpassed the simplicity of the task. I see it as a test of patience, as the fruit of labour can only be seen after the kite is being completed, which may take a couple of hours to do it. I guess some of us got a little annoyed with the tying of the skeletons, but nonetheless, everyone has done a great job in finishing their kites on time. A kite is something that you can buy easily from a convenience store (e.g. 7-11), and you can fly it any time you want, but nothing beats making your own kite from scratch, and lifting it up into the sky, knowing the time and efforts you have invested in doing so. Every kite made today is unique, and I guess this is what that really matters the most, and is the most precious takeaway from today's lesson.

The Malay word of the day is:

Layang-layang - Kite

That's all for today. (: Good night! (I am actually on the verge of dosing off while typing this entry)

Jia Wei