Saturday, February 21, 2009

Spinning Tops and Songkok Boys

There were spinning tops on display at the Kuching Waterfront amphitheatre area today. I asked one of the participants, "Why call one of them 'Gasing Pedada'?" Gasing is the Malay word for spinning top. He showed me that the gasing was in the shape of 'buah pedada' i.e. the pedada fruit, hence the name 'gasing pedada'. Hmm.never thought of that. On the table were a good collection of spinning tops created by the various ethnic groups throughout Malaysia.
Watch carefully at one that is still spinning on the chair towards the centre of the picture.
I asked him," How long can a spinning top spin? To my surprise he said that a good player of a Kelantanese spinning top can make it spin for two and a half hours. That I never knew.

Inside the amphitheatre a free variety show performed by the primary school children of SRK Buyong were watched by about four hundred members of the public and foreign tourists. The school kids were dressed in Malay traditional costume. The young Malay boys wore the typical Malay headress for men called the 'Songkok'. The songkok is worn when attending traditional functions like weddings, funeral , prayers or in certain official functions where the royalties are present. The girls on the other hand wore the 'tudung' as headress.
It was a marvellous show of talent by the young school children and was happy to have encountered them in their best costumes performing the 'zapin' dance.

A Malay 'Zapin' Dance Formation

1 comment:

Zuzana said...

Wow, two and half hours! Yes, that seems to define the laws of nature.;))
Hope your weekend was good, but it seems it was.;))