Hype Evasion And 3 Indonesian Moments Featuring Kai Hing

“It was the ‘swell of the year’ coming – or whatever, they try to say that bullshit every swell – but it actually looked kind of sick,” Kai Hing says of his recent Indonesian escapade. He’d just wrapped a breakfast meet on the Gold Coast with filmer pal Shane Fletcher when we got him on the line. With a belly full of egg and caffeine, we spoke of the trip and the project the pair had in motion. Last time they collaborated we were gifted with the dark and punchy reel that was Splashing, two hot minutes of compiled action featuring the young gent from the Sunny Coast.

Having a fresh collection of pixels delivered to our inbox from photog Andrew Shields (a few of which we have presented here), and predicting a sequel in the making, we enquired.

“Everyone was saying, ‘go to Nias!’ and we were like ‘fuck that!’ there’s going to be 80 dudes trying to prove themselves. I’d rather surf not as big waves, but with hardly anyone out.”

“Shieldsy hit us up about this resort, it’s brand new, with the same owners as another resort that they stay at,” recounted Mr Hing. “It was a free hookup, so were like ‘yep, fuck yeah! We’ll cop this!’ Then we get there and the joint wasn’t even built yet. We were staying with the guys that were building it, they’re just like some Aussie blokes, legends, but they don’t look after themselves at all and there was pretty much no food!” 

“Then the swell appeared. everyone was saying, ‘go to Nias’ and we were like ‘fuck that! It’s just going to be 80 dudes trying to prove themselves.’ So we decided to stay and move to another place. We had to pay but at least we were getting three meals a day, and a fan in our room, whereas the other joint was just concrete walls, no windows, no aircon, just me and Shane on the ground. Like a little crack den… but we got waves all day, so we just copped it.”

“Concrete walls, no windows, no aircon, just me and Shane on the ground. Like a little crack den. But we got waves all day, so it was fine, we just copped it.”

After hearing of the uncrowded Telo Islands glory that followed, Kai gave us an update on his program with flagship backer, Billabong. Graduating from the shallow end of the junior series and diving into the big boy’s pond generally presents a challenge for most at this age.

He asked whether they were breezy with him swapping out the jersey to produce clips, to which they agreed, supporting his recent work with the Metal Neck squad and Mr Fletcher.

“So Shane and I had an idea of doing another short bang bang clip like Splashing, but then we got a lot of footage and thought that we’d make something a bit longer. So I’m just going to get as productive as I can, and Still Splashing is the start of it.