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Billboard Advertising Festival |
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Indonesian Kite Train |
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Malaysian Fighter Kites |
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Wau Team Member |
Sarawak, Malaysia, Borneo
It takes 36 hours in airplane and airport transit from the Drachen office to touch down on the shores of the thrid largest island in the world, Borneo. Simply a dense jungle from the air, Drachen was visiting to photo-document another group of "wau" kites and begin a survey on the fighter and single line kites of the Republic of Brunei.
The island of Borneo is comprised of land owned by three countries-Indonesia, Malaysia and the Republic of Brunei. A visitor can quickly guage the struggle of these three country's politics, with border issues, economic issues arising from plentiful oil and natural gas resources, and impressive ecological uniqueness (its vast jungles contain with a large variety of unique flora and fauna.) We were situated in one of the smallest coastel towns, Bintulu. An old airport now cleared of planes was the site of the 3rd Annual Bintulu International Kite Festival.
This festival did feature some of the world's international kiting favorites. Peter Lynn's large, inflatable characters filled the sky to the delight of passing crowds; children were entertained and gifted by the candies falling from the stuffed animal-manned kite of Michael Alvares, and kite delegations were present from almost all over Asia. Yet, what made this kite festival so special was not just the show of international kiting greats. Most impressive was the fact that the government of Malaysia has recognized and committed themselves to preserving and teaching their own tradtional kite culture.
For decades, the Malaysian government has designed, developed and produced national kite festivals in their country-Johor, Kota Baru, and now Bintulu, with a fourth region to start in the near future.These kite festivals involve the whole Malaysian population and emphasize the heritage of the "wau" kite by bringing students and adults together for kite making and competition. This culture is the focus of the festivals, and the invitation of international kite enthusiasts is done to celebrate their particular wau craft with others.
The festival ran a full week, with a wonderful group of Malaysian kite officials on hand to assist with the arrangements and logistics. Bintulu, a small coastal town, offers little entertainment other than daily routine. Thanks to the world's largest natural gas find in 1975, their population has grown to that of nearly 500,000 people in a town that takes one only 15 minutes to walk across. All residents, in that short week, visited the kite field and all watched and flew kites.
Special thanks to Ismail bin Mat Taib, Haji Hussain Haron and Anuar Abd Ghani, whose passion for their Malaysian kites have continued to fuel the government for more projects and events.
Ali Fujino
Photos by Simon Bond