1.10. The Centuries-Old Dream of Flight

A sky densely dotted by kites is one of China’s most joyful sights. As you approach Tiananmen Square and observe colored points among the clouds you might feel puzzled as to what exactly is going on. Then you see the people holding silk strings, faces upturned, and everything is explained: you have come along on a great day for kite flying.

There are dozens of stories as to how the kite was first invented. My personal favorite tells of a peasant wearing a large bamboo hat as he worked in the field. Suddenly a strong gust blew his hat off. He ran after it but was only able to catch the hat string. After running along for sometime, holding the string as the hat flew high overhead, he suddenly realized how much fun he was having with his flying bamboo hat. This was how the first kite was born.

According to another legend, the artisans’ patron Gongshu Ban and philosopher Mo Di (?–380 BC) made kites shaped like birds that flew and somersaulted for three days in a row. Although kite-flying is generally a leisure pursuit, during China’s long history kites were also used for military purposes. They would sometimes be loaded with gunpowder to blow up an enemy camp, and were also used for dropping leaflets. This was the method used in 1232 to encourage prisoners of war captured by Mongols to raise a rebellion.

Resourceful Chinese also adapted kites for fishing by attaching line, hook and bait to a kite and sending it out to the middle of a lake or a river.

During the 7^th–8^th century the Chinese invented musical kites that whistled, groaned and emitted harp-like sounds. 

Ancient Chinese philosophers loved kites, although it is not immediately obvious what kites and philosophy have in common. In traditional China there was never a worthwhile deed or invention that did note merit some degree of philosophical insight. To early Taoists, kite-flying was a meditative exercise. Watching the soaring flight of a manmade object evoked images of the Supreme Way, and the slightest breath of was associated with a flight of imagination.  

Chinese kites are genuine works of art in amazing designs. Among them are multicolored carps and butterflies, eagles and snails, peacocks and bats, heroes of famous literary works and Peking Opera masks, and gods and dragons, to name just a few. Modern times have also been paid their aerial tribute and there are kites in the shape of tractors, famous buildings or favorite basketball teams.  

Over the centuries fengzheng (kite in Chinese) has developed into various types: kite in the shape of a dragon, kite with flexible or fixed wings, in the form of a box, etc. They also vary in size, from very big, to big, medium, small and miniature. Small ones are most popular today for their speed and durability. Many Chinese cities are famous for a particular type of kite. Tianjin, for example, specializes in soft wings, while Weifang is known for its long multi-layered dragons.

Chinese believe that kite flying is good for the health and that flying fengzheng in spring banishes excessive internal heat and strengthens immunity. Even watching kite flying is beneficial as it is good exercise for the cervical vertebrae and eyesight.

It is best for two people to fly a kite: one to hold the reel and the other to fly kite itself. A big dragon kite needs three at least: one to hold a reel and kite head, another to support the section and a third for the tail. Big dragons are sometimes as long as 100 meters.

“When you feel a gust approach, just free your kite and let it fly”, says Beijinger Wang Jingfen, to whom kite flying in Tiananmen Square is a favorite pastime. She makes it look supremely easy, but I know from experience that it is far less simple than it looks, especially for beginners. You need skill and experience to be good kite flyer. Like everything else, it requires skill too.

Tiananmen Square is the most popular place in Beijing and the whole of China to fly fengzheng. Flyers and spectators meet here to admire kites and share experience. It is where foreigners first encounter traditional kites, but there are kites enthusiasts in any Chinese park.

Creating kites is a traditional Chinese art that demands concentration, craftsmanship and inspiration. The first step is design. A pattern is drawn directly on to a length of silk, and the slightest hesitation or hand tremor ruins the fabric. This is how you can distinguish a real master – he draws a perfect pattern at the first attempt. A bamboo frame is placed over the design and excess fabric cut away. A string is then attached to the kite “body”. 

To some degree kites are an actualization of the ancient dream of flying, enacted in the opening scene of one of my favorite movies, Andrey Rublev by Andrey Tarkovsky. A man equipped with a wooden wings resembling a hang-glider flies from a medieval church belfry shouting ecstatically: “I am flying! I am flying!” His rapid and fatal landing does not matter because to this man who dares to make his dream come true, his few seconds of flight are worth more than life itself.

In the West we say that a man flies like a bird, while the Chinese think of a dragon in flight. It first gathered speed, using clouds as a springboard, and after reaching a height of 40 li uses blasts of air to take him in a free soar.

Doesn’t that sound like hang-gliding, where it possible to glide through the sky using air currents? And doesn’t a hang-glider resemble a huge kite?

The first mention of a flying machine capable of carrying a man is found in chronicles of the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577). Researchers are sure that the first flight on a device resembling a modern hang-glider occurred in China in AD 559, exactly 1335 years before Baden-Powell in Europe.

Before 1910, all books on aviation had an opening chapter on kites, and early airmen referred to their airplanes as kites. In the Aeronautics Museum in Washington, USA I noted the fengzheng was described as the “first manmade flying object”.

When I see senior citizens happily flying their kites I feel assured that true traditions never die.

Book “Chinese Customs and Wisdoms” (translated into English by the author) was published in Beijing in 2007 by the Foreign Language Press