Thursday, August 25, 2005

Week-long Kites Festival takes off in Bintulu, Sarawak


BINTULU - The Borneo-Sarawak International Kites Festival took off the ground Tuesday with the official launching by State Minister of Planning and Resource Management Datuk Haji Awang Tengah Ali Hassan at the Old Bintulu Airport.

Brunei is among the 10 foreign countries participating in this week-long festival held till Aug 28 where the general public will see the demonstration of creative and giant kites by international participants.

Other programmes featured during the festival are stunt kites performance, traditional kites making competition and national level kites competition among the various states from the peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak.

Other foreign participating countries include Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Cambodia, Singapore and the Philippines. The eight-member Brunei contingent was led by the President of Brunei-Muara District Kites Association Haji Maidin bin Haji Ahmad.

Haji Maidin said this was the first time that the association has sent its members to take part in this inaugural event organised by the State of Sarawak.

"We used to take part in Kites Festival which were usually held in Johor and Kelantan besides exposing our members to countries like Beijing and Indonesia," he said, adding that the association would organise an Asean Kites Festival in Brunei Darussalam.

Earlier, in his opening address, Awang Tengah said kite flying and kite making cut across political boundaries, histories and cultural differences. "Kite flying is a very good example of the common and universal culture of mankind which should be used to promote peace and harmony in this troubled world of ours," he added.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

No comments: