Making My Own Kite

On 5 May 2006, the eve of Singapore's Polling Day, PM Lee described other political parties as follows:

"They fly a kite and see if it catches the wind. If it doesn't, they let it go, fly another one. (If it still) doesn't, fly another one, and finally if it doesn't fly or no wind, then they give up flying kites and go play with some other games, marbles or something like that..."

PM Lee could well have been describing my childhood hobby of kite flying. In the 1960s, the phrase "go fly a kite" had a very different meaning from what it means today. It literally meant that we went kite flying. In those days, many Singaporean families were poor and ours was no exception. Hence we made or improvised most of our toys ourselves, usually from recycled materials which were free of charge.

I will describe how I made my own kite even though very nicely-made painted ones were available from the neighbourhood mama shops for only 10 cents a piece. In comparison, the cost of my self-made kite was next to nothing. The time spent to make the kite was only about 5 minutes as I was a fast worker. However, perhaps the most important thing was the great satisfaction and pride which I derived from making my own kite.

First, the materials required:

Tracing paper, 2 Sapu Lidi sticks, glue, a pair of scissors and a reel of string.


a. Tracing paper.

This item was actually the wrapper which came free with our French loaves. No Delifrance in those days, only the humble neighbourhood bakery which supplied them hot and fresh from the oven at only 15 cents a loaf. Sometimes I had to fight with my siblings over the tracing paper because they needed to use it for tracing maps while I wanted it for making my kite. For this demo, I bought the roll of the tracing paper from a provision shop for 20 cents.

b. Two Sapu Lidi Sticks.

These sticks were obtained from the sweeper's broom. Don't ask me why the broom was called Sapu Lidi. Sapu is a Malay word which means "sweep". Maybe Lidi happened to be the name of the sweeper lady then. We stole these sticks from the broom by just pulling them out. The neighbourhood kids pilfered so much of the sticks that when the sweeper picked up the broom the next morning, all the remaining sticks just fell out of the broom. (For those who do not know, the sticks actually come from the coconut leaf.)

c. Glue, a reel of string and a pair of scissors.

These items were kindly "donated" by my mother. Actually I sort of helped myself to the items in the drawer without asking my mum.

Now we are ready to get down to business.

What To Do

1. Cut out a 14-inch square of tracing paper. You can do this more easily by folding across the diagonal of the square first before cutting:

2. Break off enough of the thinner end of one of the sticks so that the longer stick that remains is about 2 inches shorter than the diagonal of the square. Place the stick on a diagonal of the square so that one end touches one of the corners of the square. Glue and fold the other corner of the paper over the stick to secure it. Cut out 2 little pieces of 2-inch square tracing paper and apply glue one side of the 2 pieces of paper. Use one piece to secure the other end of the stick and the other piece to secure the middle of the stick.

3. Bend the other stick into a curve and break off the extra length of the thinner end of stick so that the ends of the remaining thicker stick is long enough to just touch the other 2 corners of the big square tracing paper when the stick is bent into a curve. (The purpose of bending the stick is to make the kite taut enough to catch the wind when flying.)

4. Apply glue at the other 2 corners of the big square paper and fold them over to secure the bent stick in place.

5. Punch tiny holes in the kite at the positions indicated and thread a doubled-up string through the holes and secure the string. The string should be tied such that the front section of the string is slightly shorter than the rear section. (If both sections are of the same length the kite will not fly and if the rear section is longer than the front, your kite will fly backwards.)

6. Cut the remaining tracing paper into long thin strips, join them together with glue and attach the strips to the tail end of your kite to make a long tail. (The tail makes the kite more stable in flight.)

7. Paint the kite if you want to, attach a reel of string to the kite and you are ready for your kite to catch the wind.

If it can't fly, make another one. If after several attempts and your kite still doesn't fly, then go and play some other games like marbles.

Election Hustings

This may look like yet another sensitive topic to blog about. But so long as what I write are facts and not scandalous or defamatory to anyone, I guess I have nothing to worry about. Most of the details here have been reported by the media anyway.

I have been living in the Bedok Reservoir area for the last 17 years. This area was previously under Eunos GRC. Now it is under Aljunied GRC. In the 1988 elections, the Workers' Party contested in the then Eunos GRC and won 35,221 or 49.11 percent of the valid votes. Their team comprised of Dr Lee Siew Choh, Mohd Khalit bin Mohd Baboo and Francis T. Seow while the PAP's team was lead by the late Dr Tay Eng Soon. Though the PAP team won that election, it was by a nail-biting and razor-thin margin.

This year, the same two parties are contesting in the Aljunied GRC and it looks like the contest will be no less interesting to observers and voters alike. The PAP team is led by political heavyweight BG George Yeo while the Workers' Party team is led by its charismatic and photogenic Chairman Ms Sylvia Lim Swee Lian. (By the way, Ms Lim is still single and maybe also available.) One of Ms Sylvia Lim's team members is the now infamous and ever-forgetful Mr James Gomez. Frankly, if not for the minority certificate fiasco, not many people would have noticed Mr Gomez. Maybe he purposely created the incident for the much needed attention and publicity.

When this incident happened, several PAP ministers were asking through the media why Mr Gomez didn't apologise or clarify his actions. The Workers' Party's Secretary General and elected MP of Hougang Constituency, Mr Low Thia Kiang had also remained mum about the episode. Mr Gomez finally did apologise 2 days ago with Mr Low by his side doing the Mandarin translation. Later, one of the PAP ministers asked Mr Gomez to explain what he had done wrong. For if he had done nothing wrong, why was there a need to apologise? It was like 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Like what SM Goh said, the PAP should just move on. No point harping on this issue. For all you know, it may work against the PAP. After all, it is human to make mistakes. Just as there are people like Mr TT Durai, there will always be people like Mr James Gomez. Don't be mistaken, I have nothing against the minorities. We all know that some Singaporeans have a tendency to side the underdogs and give a sympathy vote to them. We only have to wait till 6 May 2006 to see if this is true. It will be an interesting contest to watch.

Update on 5 May 2006 (eve of Polling Day)

Chris just sent me a podcast from www.mrbrown.com which I suspect takes a dig at a recent incident. Listen to it as it is really funny.

Nationalities Stereotypes

Don't be misled by the title of this post. I'm not writing about the sensitive issue of race. I know better than to do that in Singapore. Instead, this post was inspired by a recent article (reproduced below) which appeared in Net Buzz, a regular feature of the New Paper whereby readers submit amusing short articles which they spotted on the Internet:

HEAVEN IS WHEN
Your cook is French
The policeman is English
Your mechanic is German
Your lover is Italian
And everything is run by the Swiss

HELL IS WHEN
Your cook is English
The policeman is German
Your mechanic is French
Your lover is Swiss
And everything is run by the Italians

Since the Internet article was reproduced in one of our national newspapers, it should be safe for me to put it back on the Internet via my blog. I can't verify how true are all the claims but we can scrutinise one aspect - how good are German cars versus French ones? I quote the survey results from the following BBC website:

Top 10 Unreliable Cars According to Topgear Survey

According to the survey, the top 10 most unreliable cars amongst a total of 142 cars surveyed in 2005 were:

Citroen C3 (133rd)
VW Polo (New) (134th)
Citroen Xsara (135th)
Citroen C5 (136th)
Fiat Stilo (137th)
Renault Megane (New) (138th)
Mercedes M-Class (139th)
Peugeot 307 (140th)
Renault Laguna (141st)
Renault Espace (142nd)

Out of the list, 7 were French cars and 2 German. So the French 'won' hands down in this dubious category. Perhaps the French should switch to selling lemons instead of cars. But then again, the British might be bias. (Note that according to the short article quoted at the beginning of this post, the English are bad cooks. So could they have cooked up the bad figures? Maybe. I personally find it hard to believe that a Mercedes is also in the list. But I couldn't help feeling worried because I drive a French car:

So far, the car has not given me any problems (touch wood). But then again, who would expect a 5-month old car to give any problems?

Recently I visited a German expo in Singapore to find out more about the Germans:

The Germans are no doubt very innovative and ingenious designers and engineers. They came up with the bionic car:

For the uninitiated, bionics translates nature's solutions into human technology, for there is no doubt that nature is the best engineer and the most ingenious designer of all. For example, how is a water spider able to swim and dive without getting wet? Real solutions from bionics include self-cleaning surfaces based on the properties of lotus leaves, self-sharpening cutting tools that copy the principle of rodent teeth. Even the Velcro fastener originated from a bionic inspiration.

The shape of the bionic car is based on the boxfish (also known as puffer fish in the local context):

It is found that a model of a boxfish in a wind tunnel test produced a very low Cd (Coefficient of Drag) value of 0.06. (The bionic car has a Cd value of 0.19.) A low Cd value translates into good fuel economy - extremely important with today's high fuel prices. (The 1991 cc bionic car has a fuel consumption of 4.3 litre/100 km. In contrast, my 1598 cc Renault Scenic could only manage 8.0 litre/100 km. What a shame!)

More details about the bionic car are available from this URL:

http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/Projects/c2c/channel/documents/783295_Gone_Fishin.pdf

The Germans not only make very good, prestigious (and expensive) cars:

And unlike the Englishmen, they are very good cooks as well:

They also brew very good beer:

And they are very proud of it:

I also wonder why did a Japanese car brand employ Germans to endorse their cars in a current TV commercial. In this commercial the people were having a conversation. It all sounds like German to me (i.e. I couldn't understand a word) and all that I can understand, if I don't read the English subtitles, is when they utter the brand of the car. Now isn't this a tacit acknowledgement that the Germans know more about good cars than the Japanese? Why didn't the car makers feature Japanese in the commercial?

However, I must say that their vacuum cleaner sucks, literally. At more than $400 for a normal vacuum cleaner, it is guaranteed not only to suck up with every speck of dust and any puppy that happens to be in the way but also all your savings too. So what if it has HEPA filters and the air it blows out is supposed to be cleaner than the air it sucks in? In my opinion, it is all hot air (pardon the pun). A vacuum cleaner does not carry a status symbol, unlike a Mercedes Benz and therefore the price is not justified. Only a sucker will buy that sucker.

So in comparison, what do the French have to offer besides their cars of dubious quality?

Only their loaves:

And a product (a type of cap) which has a name associated with them:

So what do the nationalistic and proud Frenchmen have to say?