Hawazi Daipi and Ryan Ritzalee

Hawazi Daipi:

When I was young, I loved to play congkak, which is a mancala game of Malay origin played in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Thailand and Singapore. It is a mathematical game played by two people who try to collect more seeds than the other player. It is believed that the word congkak comes from the Malay word congak (Mental calculation). It is called congklak in Indonesia and Sungka in the Philippines. Apparently, different forms of the Mancala games are played in African countries. When we were young, we used small seashells as the seeds. Nowadays people use guli or small balls of colorful glass or clay. 

Guli is a small ball made of glass or clay. They are used to playing different games, like congkak, or collected for their beautiful colors. I did that when I was a child. We played guli on the ground. We placed guli that we collected from between two and five players in a circle that we drew on the ground. Using our respective guli, we took turns to hit as many guli as possible out of the circle to add to our collection. The player who collected the most guli would be the winner!

Roda Gelung (Hoop Wheeling)
Before recycling became vogue, children of my generation were already using discarded items to make toys and games. That includes the wheel of bicycles. We removed the tyres and wheel spokes. The tyre’s air tube would be used for something else, like the base of capteh. The metal wheel frame would be used as Roda Gelung for hoop wheeling for sprint runs. Players used a short stick to push the wheel forward and run with it. The player who reached the end point first would be the winner. I found this game that we played after school quite challenging as it demanded players to be skillful in maintaining the balance of the wheel even as they were running speedily.

Capteh
Most of the games my friends and I played when we were young were traditional games, which we made ourselves. One of the games I liked most was the capteh, a feathered shuttlecock. One needed to be skillful, agile and can maintain balance while keeping the capteh in the air for as long as possible by kicking it up with the heel of the foot. To make capteh, we needed four or five chicken feathers (which we collected from the nearby market). We would cut the air tube of the bicycle tyre to make rubber discs for the base of the capteh. Using rubber bands, we would tie the feathers to the rubber discs, with a short nail used as a connecting element. It was fun making capteh ourselves.

Foot scooter
This was probably the most challenging toy that I have ever made. Thanks to my father’s modest carpentry tools, and available materials like solid planks and metal chain, a friend and I managed to make one foot scooter. For sure it was not a unique invention because some older boys had made theirs before us. I would say that my friend and I were inspired by them. We had to maintain balance of the foot scooter as the foot platform and the handle piece were joined using a metal chain. For the wheels, we used two metal wheel bearings. It was certainly a far cry from today’s sleek foot scooters, especially the electric or battery-run variety. But nothing beats the joy of using a foot scooter built by oneself.

Ryan Ritzalee:

Unlike Mr Hawazi, I do not have to create my own games from scratch nor have to leave the house to play. With the development of technology, I spend most of my time in my room playing my PS4 which is a gaming console. Without having to leave my house to play with my friends, from my PS4, I can easily communicate and play simultaneously with them on online servers. However, I must agree that meeting up with friends face-to-face is definitely more fun.

In the past, Mr Hawazi could only get to play after school and on weekends. However, even when I am on the move to school, I get to play mobile games on my phone. At my fingertips, I can just launch an application and begin to play. Some games on my phone even allow me to play with my friends in synchrony. With the wide array of games to be downloaded, one can never get bored of playing games on their phones.

It is a common understanding of the older generation that children nowadays coop themselves in their rooms playing their own online games. Well, that is not true as children can also get sick of staring at their screens. Hence, sometimes we would invite friends and family over to our houses to play card games and board games. One example is ‘UNO’ which can even be played with the older generation as it is easy to understand.

Sometimes, for those extroverted ones, they would prefer going out to play! For myself, I am a skate scooter enthusiast. I like to use my skate scooter as a mode of transport as it keeps me active. For some, they do stunts at the skateparks.

Lastly, and probably a game that even Mr Hawazi has played in his younger days is Football. Football allows up to 22 players to play at once. The game requires a lot of teamwork and good communication. For those who play professionally, it teaches its players to be more self-disciplined and resilient.