THE JOYS OF PLAYTIME PAST

While digital games like Minecraft and Candy Crush rule the modern day, old-school ones such as capteh and kuti kuti once reigned supreme in Singapore's schoolyards and playgrounds. The Straits Times explores how heritage pastimes continue to serve as psychological anchors long after their heyday.

- Yamini Chinnuswamy

Bored kids looking to pass the time may doom-scroll TikTok, horse around at the playground or play video games. Their options seem endless today.

But previous generations of Singaporeans, such as Mr Chang Yang Fa, 76, had to be more creative and imaginative during their childhood in the 1960s and 1970s, or earlier.

"The reality is that during my time, we did not have television. There was no internet or mobile phone to distract us," the founder of the Mint Museum of Toys in Seah Street tells The Straits Times.

But because Singapore was far less built-up in the colonial era and early years of independence, it was easy for Mr Chang and his peers to find an empty field where they could amuse themselves for hours.

"We would catch spiders and play with wild grass, or use our brains to improvise new activities," he says.

They also played what people today regard as "old-school games". In a game of capteh, for instance, players keep a shuttlecock airborne for as long as possible, usually by kicking it.

Capteh was a popular choice among boys of his generation, says Mr Chang, especially since it involved only one portable prop that could be handmade.

"We'd take some old rubber tyre pieces cut into discs and pierce them with a long nail. Then we'd attach rooster tail feathers, usually gathered from feather dusters, which in those days were made of real feathers," he adds.

"The capteh toys were nothing to be proud of. These were things we would make and play with until they were worn out. Then we would just make another one."

Five stones is another popular traditional game played with homespun props. Players throw the "stones", often made with fabric scraps and filled with beans or rice, in a series of increasingly complicated manoeuvres.

Ms Rebecca Wong, who is in her late 40s, remembers playing five stones with her classmates at Raffles Girls' Primary School in the mid-1980s. The set was made by her mother.