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n conjunction with National Children's Day on July 23, Museum Bali has launched an exhibition of traditional Balinese children's games to run from July 23 to 27.

'This exhibition is the right moment to re-introduce traditional games to our children, and we can also preserve Balinese culture,' head of Bali's culture agency I Ketut Suastika said on Tuesday.

Suastika praised the traditional games of Bali, which mostly used natural materials, were highly creative and possessed moral lessons to build positive characteristics in children.

More than 30 different traditional games, with or without equipment, are being exhibited in the event. Bali itself is home to around 200 traditional games, according to Balinese artist Made Taro. For this exhibition, Museum Bali has been turned into a children's playground, where various traditional toys and dozens of photographs of children playing various traditional games are being showcased.

Some of the toys are hard to find nowadays, while many of the games are seldom played. The games include deduplak, tajog, megoak-goakan and rerindikan, to name a few.

To play deduplak, coconut shells and a rope are needed. The rope is attached to the coconut shell, and then used like footwear. The players race to see who is the fastest with coconut shells on their feet.

Meanwhile, tajog uses wood or bamboo. The players race to see who is fastest to hop onto the bamboo or wood without falling.

The game megoak-goakan comes from the word goak, which means crow. The game requires five children and a large field. In Buleleng, the game is still played on the eve of the Saka new year, with gamelan or tetabuhan percussion instruments.

The rerindikan is a musical instrument made of bamboo, while kreregan pangi is also a musical instrument, but made of pangi fruit and string. Meanwhile, pindekan is a type of windmill that produces a loud cracking sound and also scares away birds from the rice fields.

As an artist known for his work preserving traditional games, Taro said that along with the fading of traditional Balinese games in today's generation, the mental and physical features of Balinese youngsters had also changed.