Childhood and space
When I was a kid, when the school holidays started, my parent will take me to my grandparent’s place which situated in Kedah, the northern state in Malaysia. Mainly in Kedah it is kind of rural compare to Penang which is very much city like. The best things being in rural areas ‘kampung’ is the space, and its not only empty space but with trees and some ‘kampung’ insects (e.g.butterflies, dragonflies etc.) and animal like rural chicken ‘ayam kampung’ etc.
At that time there are no internet or broadband. As a kid, having the big space to explore means a lot of work do. Further more, having cousins around makes it much more adventurous. Many ideas is much better than one. We start with discussion about what we wanted to do. Having a space triggers several creative thoughts. Using object around us and perhaps some from the house (borrowed from my grandmother) will help to make something. What should we do with this space? Should we make hut out of the tree and leaves (mainly we use coconut leaves because it’s big) ? Or make some color from organic product? Or make some chairs for us to sit under the trees? We end up making so much things, and this process always make us wanted to go back to the space we have in the ‘kampung’.
Why when we as a kid, when we can’t consume much, we allowed ourselves to think creatively using space and object we have around us just to have some excitement? What allow us?
‘Tarik upih’ is one of the game that I played with my parent and my uncle. ‘Upih’ is from coconut leave, old and dry, then I sit on the leave, my uncle pull it and run with me on it. We make a race with my parent and we had so much fun. It use our energy too.