Chinese Kites

In The Air Or On The Wall

The history of kites in China is a very long one. Chinese kites have been made and flown all this time as a part of the national culture. According to historical records, this has spanned more than 2300 years.

Some of the traditional bamboo and silk hand-painted creations made today have hardly changed from those flown many hundreds of years ago. A similar situation exists with kites made in Japan, a close neighbor of China.

The traditional kites done by highly skilled kitemakers/artists have even been exhibited in museums, such is their artistic worth.

Types of Chinese Kites

It's interesting trying to classify these kites, since the Chinese themselves have come up with so many different ways to do this. Maybe that's not so surprising since it's a big country and they have had so long to do it! I've found a few commonly used kite groups, let's start with the most general first.

Ok, there are two major categories. Kites with detachable wings and those with fixed wings. The detachable variety are easy to pack away, and are often given as presents. A very Chinese thing to do, I know, I have a Chinese mother-in-law! The kites with fixed wings tend to fly a bit better, at the cost of being less convenient to transport around.

Other people will tell you there are actually four categories. Those being...

• Centipede (multiple flat sections stacked together plus a 'head')
• Rigid Winged (paper or silk tightly stretched over rigid spars)
• Soft Winged (flexible structures behind just one spar)
• Flat (just like the name says)

Spectacular Chinese dragon kites are an example of the centipede type of kite.

Fussier people will say 'no, actually there are eight different groups of Chinese kites being flown today'. I'll just list these off here...

• Dragon (otherwise known as Centipede, as already mentioned)
• Rigid Winged (as already mentioned)
• Rigid Winged with Strings (musical, the strings vibrate in the breeze)
• Soft Winged (as already mentioned)
• Soft Winged with Strings (those vibrating strings again...)
• Flat (as already mentioned)
• Box (I wonder how traditional these are? They were invented in Australia!)
• Freestyle (doesn't sound very traditional either...)

If you drop the last 2 categories, you're back to something pretty close to the 4-category list. Those musical types of kites originate from just a few particular localities in China.

Are you ready to go 'over the top' in kite classification? According to one source I came across, there are no less than 300 varieties of kites in China! This system takes into account groups of kites such as human figures, fish, insects, birds, animals, written characters and so on.

There is a range of standard sizes too, ranging from extra large right down to miniature. The biggest take a team of men to fly, the smallest are just the size of the palm of your hand. At a kite festival I went to recently, the commentator mentioned a Thai kite festival where she saw a military tank anchoring a ridiculously big Asian kite!

Traditional kite handicraft has flourished in three Chinese cities in particular. They are Tianjin, Beijing and Weifang.

Another location not to be missed if you are travelling in China and have an interest in kites is the city of Xian. This old city is the capital of Shaanxi Province, with a history going back no less than 3100 years according to some sources! Let's see, my home city of Adelaide was established sometime in .... the 1800s - no comparison!

Kites can be seen flying during the day and at night at various locations around Xian. Sometimes these are of the spectacular centipede variety.

Hotel reservations in Xian are booked by large numbers of tourists who can expect to be offered kites by street hawkers at some point during their stay!

If travelling over there, also consider these hotels in China, many of which are in well-known kite-flying cities.

Chinese Kites in Action

History aside, Chinese kites these days are flown for very similar reasons to everywhere else in the world. It's fun, it can be recreation for the whole family. Also, for some there is the satisfaction of knowing they actually built the kite as well.

But there are a couple of extra dimensions to flying kites in China.

Traditionally, kite flying was believed to be good for people's health, and this view is still held by some. A bit like some Westerners regarding laughter as being beneficial, who hasn't read something about that at one time or another. Some of the traditional benefits of Chinese kite flying include...

• relieving internal body heat
• building up health
• improving eyesight
• relieving eye strain

For a long time, most Chinese kites have been flying works of art. Real art, as proven by the fact they could be found in many art collections around China. A good example was when the Yanhuang art museum in Beijing ran a kite exhibition.

Modern Western kites are getting fancier, and some certainly make an impressive, colorful sight in the air. However, calling them 'art' has been controversial for some time. But there is a growing connection between art and kiting in the West. Especially since the 1999 Millennium Exhibition in the U.S. where some very well-known artists were invited to create an 'art kite' as an exhibit. Also, some years later, there was the WindArt Kite Festival in Florida U.S.A. Kitemakers and artists came together to create original, flying works of art.

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Last updated: 12 Oct 2009