A Brief History Of Kiting - From China To The World

In the present day, we inevitably think of the kite like a child's toy, but this isn't the case. There are a huge variety of kites used for many purposes, even military! There are kites for competition, racing, other sports such as snow-kiting, and also for eminently practical uses, such as transporting provisions or radio antennae. Even though Chinese Kites are a particularly elegant category of modern day kites, China was actually the kite's birth place. Kites were first used about 2,800 years ago and the first application was perhaps for the military, as is mostly the case with any new technology!

Even though there is some evidence that kites were flown in quite a simple form in Polynesian countries, it was the Chinese who developed the craft into a genuinely effective art. Those early kites were largely rectangular and could be enormous. According to old accounts, they were employed for communications, lifting goods and sometimes men! In the twentieth century, the military utilized kites for measuring wind strength, measuring distance and signalling between troops. They didn't usually have tails, but carried a long bow-line for stabilization. War kites were painted with fearsome motifs, while traditional characters were used for other variations.

Science And Kites

Benjamin Franklin used a kite to test his hypothesis that lightning was a form of electricity. Of course, he was right, and barely escaped with his life! During the second part of the 18th century, and up up to 1910, the kite was employed extensively by scientific bodies in many applications, like aerial photography, communications, transporting men, and experiments in aeronautics - not such a far cry from those uses employed in the kite's humble beginnings!

Nowadays, kites are quick, really light and super responsive to wind and control. The hang-glider is of course the pinnacle of the evolution of this venerable art, having achieved man's dream of soaring like a bird and nothing attaching him to the ground below.

Flying kites is really popular in Asia, and often takes the form of 'kite-fighting', when competitors attempt to snag each others kite lines, or take an opponent kite down to earth. These kites of triangular shape don't normally have a tail, because they need to be quick and responsive in order to out manoeuvre the enemy kite. Across India , kites are flown regularly for festivals and are illustrated with spirits and devils, proving an entertaining spectacle. There are competitions for height and aerobatics, and a peculiar form of kite dancing! Several countries specialize in kites which make music, and flyers attach various items to the tail to generate musical notes - In Vietnam there are pipes, in Bali stringed bows and in Malaysia, a little series of gourds for the wind to blow.

Kites For Fighting

This appears to very common in several Asian countries, and more so than in China. Even though its sometimes difficult to work out who really won a competition, opponents are constantly devising innovative strategies for defeating an opponent in creative ways. In Pakistan, a common practice is to impregnate the kite string with a sticky substance and then draw it through a coarse powdered glass mixture. When the string passes across an opponent's kite string, it behaves like a saw and cuts the cord, releasing the kite. Kites in Asia are almost as ornate as the Chinese variiety.