In an age when television was not yet available, kite fighting was a very popular pastime particularly in the early evenings, when even adults would fly their kites and pit their kite-fighting skills with anonymous others within the area and many children would look on with eager anticipation. The kites were made of fine but strong tissue-like paper shaped like a diamond with thin bamboo frames comprising a singular rib running down the diagonal and attached to another arched bamboo piece stretched and glued to two adjacent sides of the diamond-shape piece of tissue paper. A piece of thread is then attached at two points; one to the joint between the two bamboo pieces and the other further down the rib towards the base of the diamond shape. The kite-line is then tied somewhere in the middle of this short piece of thread thereby giving it some balance and stability in the wind. For me, because money was tight I used to make my own kites using the translucent coverings of toilet rolls (in those days when toilet rolls first appeared, each was wrapped up in a thin but strong tissue which I found suited my purpose) for the kite and two pieces of ‘sau siew’ for the frame in the same manner as that found in the kites bought in the shops.
Kite-fighting usually begins with a single kite appearing in the late afternoon sky as if signalling its territorial claim and daring all others to acknowledge its supremacy or prove it otherwise. Very soon challengers would appear and the excitement would mount. Eventually, the sky immediately above us would be populated with some dozen or so of these kites each looking to do battle with the others. Kite-flyers would then first ‘temp’ their adversaries through initiating a circling movement of their kites edging them purposefully but cautiously towards their adversary, like two wrestlers, before finally in a swift and sudden movement launching into a full-scale attack through the swift and most vicious pulling-back of their kite line and by so doing forcing the kite to dive down unerringly towards its prey thereby causing its line to violently cut across the kite line of its adversary so that eventually one of the kite-lines parted and the kite released into the wind. This swift and sudden engagement produces an unambiguous result; a victor and a vanquished (although sometimes, more rarely, both lines are simultaneously cut). ‘Anyut, anyut’ (Malay for cut!, cut!) goes the triumphant cry as one of the combatant’s line is cut and the kite detached from the thread-line that only moments ago held it proud and taut in the evening breeze. Only the victor’s kite now remains triumphantly preening itself in the early evening sky after its successful accomplishment whilst the other kite with its string now cut loose is blown away by the wind eagerly followed in hot pursuit by a mob of youths in anticipation of where the kite will eventually land. The first boy who gets there and grabs the severed thread line of the kite then proudly claims possession of the prized property. Occasionally, however, a really good kite-fighter is even able to track and encircle the trailing line of the cut kite entangling the two lines thereby securing it and then bringing in the ‘booty’ to base.
The real secret of successful kite-fighting lies in the meticulous preparation of the kite line in readiness for an eventual kite-fight. It starts with a spool of ordinary white sewing thread (although I have used very fine fishing lines as well!). To make the thread ‘sharp’ so that it can effectively cut other kite lines in a kite-fight it had to be coated with very fine powdered glass so that the latter served as tiny cutting edges along the whole length of the thread. Of course, this meant that handling this ‘glass’ thread caused us no end of small cuts and sometimes we even cut ourselves quite badly especially when we furiously pull back the line in the midst of a kite-fight. Nevertheless all this is accepted as part of the excitement of kit-fighting. The ‘glass’ thread is produced by first pounding glass pieces (usually from broken beer, or soy sauce bottles or broken bulbs) into a fine powdered form, putting it into an empty condensed milk tin (which was readily available in those days), adding a few pieces of goo phuah kar (cow hide glue), and a bit of water before boiling the tin with its contents over an open fire. The goo phuah kar would melt and the result was a thick, sticky liquid-like solution containing suspended glass power. With a piece of stiff wire stuck through the hollowed centre of the spool of thread, the latter is then lowered into the sticky solution with the starting end of the thread tied to a post. Carefully the spool of thread is then unravelled by allowing the spool to rotate freely on the stiff wire whilst walking backwards away from the post to another post some distance away (I often used the posts that my mother needed for hanging out the washings, or sometimes between the trunks of two trees). Turning around this second post or tree trunk, I would then walk back and round the first post/tree and so on for many ‘rounds’ until the whole thread spool is emptied of its contents. The ‘glass’ thread is then left to dry for a few hours in the hot sun and then re-reeled back onto the spool. Our ‘glass’ thread kite-line is now ready for the real test against others who have prepared themselves in a similar manner. Ultimately the ‘sharpness’ of the thread and the skill of the kite-flyer in manoeuvring the kite into a favourable position, so that it can attack in one swift and continuous motion, is what determines the success or otherwise of a kite-fighting encounter.