EARLY YEARS, MY CHILDHOOD PART 2

Creating my own play

Because of the age gap among my siblings, playing at home meant I had to play alone. I had to be ingenious to create my own play. I will take my father’s tools like the hammer, wire cutter and saw to construct my crafts. Since he stopped commercial chicken farming, there were plenty of discarded chicken cages. I cannibalized the wood and cut off chicken wire to build my own bird traps and cages. This was the time I learn to use the hammer and nails. My carpentry skill actually was developed during this young age.

Trapping Birds

Birds’ trapping was one of my favourite hobbies that was very thrilling and can be carried out independently. I also remembered many Malays used to come to our neighbourhood to trap ‘burong kuku’ or ‘burong keropok’. They used one bird kept in a cage shielded by cloth. Nearby, they will place a branched laced with glue. The bird’s singing in the cage would attract other birds. When the unsuspecting birds landed on the glue branch, their feet will be stuck. This rubber glue is made from burning hardened rubber into liquid form. Then it is mixed with white rubber latex. I learned this technique from my brother and have produced my own bird glue. This glue was also used to trap other species of birds.

My neighbour also came to our farm to catch quails. They used a series of nooses made from fishing lines and laid in the sweet potatoes creepers. When the quails move through the sweet potatoes leaves, the nooses tightened around the necks and thus were trapped. I observed and also picked up this method. But it I found this not exciting. I also learned to set trap that use simple mechanism to set off automatically when the bird came for the bait. Using this method has its downside, often the preys died of strangulation. So I discontinued this method. I will blog on bird trapping, my specialty and something I wanted to boast but never, in another post.

Catching anythings that move

Other activities included catching spiders and all sort of dragonflies. I picked the techniques from my elder brother. I also secretly went to stream to catch fishes myself or with my brothers. We risked our feet being cut by debris while wading in the black and smelly stream water. Here we also harvested earthworms from certain part of the river bed to feed the fish.

I find it very difficult to describe this feeling of sheer exhilaration, thrill and joy of a good catch, be it a big male spider, big rare dragonfly, burong (bird) with unique singing voice or a colourful fish. It was the ecstasy of winning something big, outwitting the survival instincts of nature.

Admiring a newly born puppy. We don't wear shoes. Me in the centre topless. Left is my sis and squatting is brother Bobby.

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