Kite Flying

On my way home from work today, I was riding my bike on the paquier past the lake in Annecy. It was a nice day with a gentle breeze and so there were a couple of people out flying kites. For some reason, I had this incredibly strong flashback – one I’ve never had before, so I don’t know why it was triggered so strongly on this occasion.

The scene: Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China. Summer 1994. I’m 8 years old, and it’s my first move from my birthplace of Texas. Bit of a change. As newcomers, we decided to visit the sites of Beijing before school started at the beginning of August, so one day, not too dissimilar to today in terms of weather, we found ourselves on Tiananmen Square. There were a large number of Chinese flying kites on the square – whether this is still as common a practice as it used to be, I don’t know, although it’s clear that some people do still do it, but perhaps now it’s just for tourists. The thing about Chinese kites is that they’re incredibly artistic and often extremely intricate – from dragonfly or butterfly kites with long tails and eyes that spin in the wind, to goldfish with long flowing tales, to the most impressive of all – dragon kites. These have the head of a dragon and then a body composed of a number of parts connected with string, making the body flexible. Anyway, my sister and I really wanted to have a try ourselves – but we didn’t have a kite. That is until an old man waved us over and let us fly his kite.

Every time we went back to Tiananmen Square, whether it was to visit the Forbidden City, to re-visit the Square or just passing through, there would be someone who would offer to let us fly his or her kite. It was the same in public parks. We didn’t waste too much time before buying our own kites, and to this day I still have a dragonfly and a goldfish kite.

Unfortunately I haven’t flown either of them in years now. Kite flying in China is an institution – a little like riding a bicycle in The Netherlands – it’s just done. Usually I can’t find a place to fly them (not enough space, too many trees, electricity cables, etc.), but even if there is the space, it just wouldn’t be the same as flying a kite on Tiananmen Square.

And by coincidence, I just realised that a fellow ex-Beijinger TCK posted recently about flying a fish kite.