China And kites -a Cultural Reflection

文：郑茜

Everybody knows that kites originate from China, and that it is ancient Chinese who invented kites.

In China, the invention of kites is often attributed to Mo Di (about 468 BC - 376 BC), a Chinese philosopher of the Warring States period. While a philosophical monograph, Mo Zi, or the Teachings of Master Mo Di, nonetheless contains descriptions of numerous mechanical engineering wonders. Legend goes that through three years?hard work, the philosopher produced a wooden bird, which broke down after flying just for one day.

Kites are also attributed to Han Xin, a great soldier who helped found the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD). In the year 202 BC, two peasant rebel armies fought the last battle for supremacy over China, one under Han Xin and the other, under Xiang Yu. The battle took place at Gaixia, somewhere in what is now northern Anhui Province, east China, and Xiang Yutroops were surrounded watertight by troops under Han Xincommand. Legend goes that to disintegrate the enemy troops who were mostly from the Kingdom of Chu, Han Xin ordered some huge kites flown into the sky, with musicians riding on the kites who kept playing Chu music with a kind of vertical bamboo flute known as xiao. The tactic worked. The enemy troops fled helter-skelter, and their commander, Xiang Yu, committed suicide in the end.

Forget about whether the stories about Mo Di and Han Xin are true. But, according to some historical records, Han Xin did order a kite flown into the sky to measure the distance from where his troops were stationed to the imperial palace complex of the Qin Dynasty he was about to attack. A less known person to whom kites are attributed is Yang Kan, who lived in the sixth century AD. In the year 549, according to historical records, an armed rebellion broke out in southern China, which was then under the reign of the Liang Dynasty, and the rebel troops besieged the Dynastycapital Jiankang, what is now Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, east China. On Yang Kanproposal, the emperor ordered a kite flown into the sky, bearing words promising a big award for any person who picked up the kite and sent it to the relief troops. This turned out to be a futile attempt, not because the kite failed to fly, but because it was shot down by rebel troops shortly after it soared into the sky.

In the year 559, just ten years later, one more story associated with kites happened. Emperor Wen Xuan of the Qi Dynasty, which ruled parts of northern China, ordered some huge kites flown into the sky, each carrying a convict on the death row, and promised to pardon those who managed to fly out and land safely outside the walled capital city. According to historical records, one of the convicts, named Huang Tou, succeeded.

The Invention of Kites

It is now difficult for us to verify the truth of such stories even though they are told in historical records. Some folk stories, however, may provide clues to study of how kites were invented.

One folk story has a farmer working in the fields, when suddenly his straw hat was blown into the sky by gale-force wind. It so happened that he had a long string attached to the straw hat, and he was quite fascinated seeing the straw hat “lying”up and down while still under his control. That inspired the farmer and others to invent kites.

Another folk story attributes the invention of kites to fallen leaves flying in wind. In ancient times, people in some parts of China are fond of “lying”big leaves with long strings attached, the way people of today fly kites. The story seems convincing, as people of some ethnic minority groups on the Taiwan and Hainan islands are still flying kites made of breadfruit leaves.

Some scholars attribute the invention of kites to inspiration ancient Chinese drew from sails. Farm back to 4,000 years ago, ancestors of the Chinese people were already using sailing boats. But most agree that birds were the source of inspiration for the making of kites by ancient Chinese. Textual research reveals that in ancient China, most kites were in the shape of birds. Here is one more proof: kites are still referred to as zhi yuan, which means “flying sparrow hawks made of paper”

Development of Kites

According to legends, Mo Di used wood to build a bird-like flying vehicle, and Han Xinkites were made of cattle hide. It is, however, the invention of paper that made kites popular. We may imagine that before paper was invented by the Chinese, kites, if any, should be made of thin, light material such as silk cloth.

Whether it is true that the earliest kites were good enough to carry people high up in the sky, we are quite sure that from time to time they were used for military purpose - reconnaissance, intelligence, etc.

In the New Chronicles of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) by Ouyang Xiu, a scholar of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), we find one more story about how kites were used in warfare. The story took place in the year 781, when imperial troops under the command of General Zhang Pei were besieged by rebel soldiers. To force the enemy to raise the siege, the general had a kite flown into the sky, which flew over the camping site of the enemy to reach where reinforcements were stationed.

Still we are unable to verify whether the kite really carried a person up in the sky. Nevertheless, the story does suggest that people of the Tang Dynasty were good at making kites and flying them. And beginning the dynasty, the rise of a folk festival made kite-flying a most popular game. The festival has survived to our times.

The Qingming Festival, which falls on April 5 by the Gregorian calendar, is dedicated to the dead. On that day, people invariably visit their dead relativesgraves and after that, will go out in the wilderness to enjoy the beauty of Nature in springtime. During the Tang Dynasty, kite flying became an important activity during the Qingming Festival, along with polo, swinging and other games.

During the Song Dynasty, kite flying became a favorite game of the monarchs and aristocrats as well. Emperor Hui Zong of the dynasty was so fond of flying kites that he took pains to compile an album of the best kites in the country. As kite flying became increasingly popular, there emerged handicraftsmen specializing in making kites, and kite flying became a favorite theme for the traditional Chinese painting and poetry. Believe it or not, there were even professional “Kite fliers”who lived on flying kites to please spectators.

Kite making had its heyday during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, of which we have voluminous documentation. To be more specific, it became a special part of the traditional arts and crafts. A wide range of techniques was developed to add beauty to kites and make them fly higher, including for example the techniques of pasting paper-cuts or paper flowers on kites, as well as tracing designs in gold or silver on them. Kites were no longer “silent” While flying, they were able to produce beautiful sounds with whistles attached to them. In some coastal areas, kite whistles were made of gourds and shells of gingko fruit, and the sound they produced could be heard one kilometer away. Moreover, kites came to be used as tributes sent by local officials to the imperial court. There were handicraftsmen who specialized in making kites for the imperial family. These included Yu Zhenpei of Weifang, Shandong Province, east China, Ha Guoliang of Beijing and Wei Yuantai of Tianjin. When Yu Zhenpei came to Beijing, he was given the honor of seeing Empress Dowager Ci Xi, the de facto ruler of the Qing Dynasty in its last decades, in the course of which an honorific title was conferred on him. Kites for use by the imperial family were, of course, the most beautiful - or most extravagant, to be more exact - as they were produced without heed to the cost.

Beijing, the national capital, became Chinas “capital of kites”as well. Liulichang, the famous antique street in town, turned out to be a brisk kite market. It may be interesting to note that not a few members of the intelligentsia became kite fans. Painter Xu Wei (1521-1593) of the late Ming Dynasty is still remembered for the beauty of his paintings and poems with kites or kite flying as the theme. Cao Xueqin (1715-1763), a literary giant, was good at making kites. In addition to the novel Dreams of the Red Mansion recognized as the pinnacle of classic Chinese literary, he authored a book on the techniques for making kites of the 43 types that were most popular in both northern and southern China.

It is also during the Ming-Qing period that kite flying came to be associated with peoplemental world. In some areas, kite flying was seen as a way to alleviate depression and anxiety, people believing that by setting loose kites they were flying, gone would be free bad mood that may cause them to fall ill.

In some other areas, however, kites flying in the sky were regarded as symbols of happiness. People in these areas believed that a person would lose his or her happiness if the kite he or she was flying broke loose. The person would try by a thousand and one ways to recover the kite, in order to recover his or her lost happiness. The person who picked up the kite would try to keep it in order to increase his “happiness in stock” If the owner of the kite insisted that the kite be returned, the person who had picked it up would cut a hole on it, hoping that the happiness that had unexpectedly fallen from the sky would continue to stay in his house.

Kite flying was also to develop into a sport. A man named Li Shi noted in a book he authored that people would invariably kept their mouths open and their necks stretched while flying kites. That, he said, amounted to a physical exercise effective enough to help them release “malicious airs”from their bodies. According to Fu Chadun, another author, kite flying helps improve peopleeyesight as those who fly kites have to follow their movements high above them in the sky.

The Earliest Flying Vehicle

In about the 12th century, kites found their way out of China, first to Korea and Japan, and then were brought across the vast seas and occasions to Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and finally, to New Zealand. Kites also reached Europe, via the Silk Road that linked ancient China with countries and regions to its west. There is also the assumption that it is Italian traveler Marco Polo who brought kites to Europe after staying in China for as long as 17 years.

By the 16th century, kites had become most popular toys on the European continent. But they were not to stay as they were forever. Kites inspired Huge Kelly of Britain, founder of modern aeromechanics, to produce in 1804 a model glider, the first in the world. Then Lawrence Hargrave, a British scientist residing in Australia, succeeded in inventing a kind of box-like kite able to fly evenly in the sky. On November 14, 1894, he “flew”4.8 meters above the ground by riding on a kite with four such “boxes”tied together. In the late 19th century and the early 20th, kites were used to carry meteorological instruments up in the sky for meteorological observation. Beginning 1905, Hargraveinvention was successfully used to produce gliders.

On the North American continent, kites also inspired people to make scientists and engineering breakthroughs the way they did in Europe. It is known to all that Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States and also a scientist, invented the lightning rod after flying a kite into the sky with a metal wire to test the discharge of electricity by lightning. On December 17, 1903, the worldfirst flying vehicle fitted with an engine, a real airplane, took off from ground. The flying machine, which was invented by the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, flew twice, for 12 and 59 seconds, respectively, and covered a distance of 852 feet.

The world, now in the space age, always admires the Chinese for their invention of kites, which have turned out to be a source of inspiration for scientific and engineering breakthroughs the human race has made over the past centuries. A huge kite is displayed in the reception hall of the Washington Aerospace Museum, the caption reading “he earliest flying vehicles are kites and rockets invented by the Chinese”

A Cultural Reflection of Kites

Karl Marx of Germany spoke highly of the four great inventions by the Chinese - paper, gunpowder, compass and typesetting for printing, noting that these significantly promoted human progress. According to the founder of the world Communist movement, the gunpowder blew knighthood to pieces, the paper facilitated the spreading of Christianity, and the compass led to the rise of colonialism.

Ancient Chinese, however, seldom tried to develop their inventions and use them to make their country strong. Gunpowder, for example, was used mainly to produce firecrackers set off to increase the mood of jubilation during festivals or to drive off the evil spirits away believed to have caused people to fall ill. China suffered one humiliating defeat after another in the Opium War of the 1840s, the invasion by the joint expedition force of Britain and France in 1860 and the invasion by the joint force of eight imperialist powers in 1990. During all these wars, Chinese soldiers had to use spears and swords to fight the aggressor troops using canons and firearms, not knowing that Western imperialist powers were using an invention by their ancestors to humiliate their country. When Benjamin Franklin used a kite in scientific research, Chinese handicraftsmen in Beijing, Weifang and other places were busy improving the techniques for making kites, so that people would gain more artistic satisfaction from flying them.

Contemporary Chinese author Chen Jigang is one of a few who are keen enough to link kites to the characters of the Chinese nation. Says he, “Most kites flown outside China are symmetrical, in the shape of triangles or diamonds, and only a few resemble impressionist paintings. Unlike the Chinese who, in making kites, always aim at producing artificial birds or animals that are able to fly, kite makers in foreign lands concentrate on producing something for practical use, something that make the best use of the wind so that it can fly as high as possible.”Chen and many other authors note that kites produced in ancient China were originally for this or that practical use - more often than not for military use. The wooden birds attributed to Mo Zi, for example, is said to be meant for surveillance of the what was going on in the capital city of the Song Kingdom, which was being besieged by troops of the Lu Kingdom. In the Ming Dynasty, a man named Wang Kui once used kites to measure the force and directions of wind. As time went by, however, kites became nothing but toys, and kite flying, a hobby or pastime. Kites and kite flying were appreciated simply for their recreational or aesthetic value, and never was there a Chinese who ventured beyond that, who tried to understand why kite can fly and seek inspiration from kites and kite flying.

Why is it that kites took two different directions in their development in the West and China, which seem to be diametrically opposed to each other?

Kites, as we see them, carry both scientific and artistic messages. In China, kites developed into art objects meant for recreation or aesthetic appreciation, even though they were invented for practical use. In the West, however, kites were taken as a tool with which people tried to explore the secret of the universe, a tool for use in scientific experiments that are meant to eventually give birth to a new material force.

Seen from the perspective of the development of human cultures, we may say that an original concept may develop in two possible directions. One enables the concept to extend and eventually embrace the objective world through intuition of those who have established it, starting from the their awareness of the need to transform it into something useful. Following the other direction, however, the concept may develop into something that enables those who have established it to interact with Nature, so that eventually, the concept becomes a rationalized logical thinking, instead of something for practical use. Development of this concept in such a direction invariably leads to a combination of the human spirit or consciousness with the Nature. That was exactly the direction taken by ancient Chinese with regard to the development of kites. Starting from the what is known to philosophers as the “self” or from the relationship between Man and Nature in plane language, ancient Chinese developed a philosophical approach that embraces the entire universe, a culture unique in that it combines the Mansubject self and the objective world or Nature. In other words, the combination of Man and Nature thus became the basic or the most salient feature of the traditional Chinese culture.

To be more specific, the ancient or traditional Chinese philosophy regards the universe as consisting of two basic elements, namely, yin and yang, which are opposed to each other while complementing each other. The sun is yang, while the moon is yin; the man is yang, while the woman is yin, the north is yang, while the south is yin; etc. From the concept of yin-yang there stems Dao which, literally meaning the “great way” is seen as the highest form of existence for Nature and at the same time, the highest pursuit of the human race as well as the cultural realm on the highest plane. To put it another way, Dao represents the highest form for the combination of Man and Nature. The ancient Chinese regarded Man as an inherent part of Nature, as manifested in the old maxim “Man was born as a part of Heaven and Earth and everything in Heaven and on Earth is a part of Man? For this reason, they tended to understand Nature simply through intuition, through their direct experiences, instead of attempting to understand Nature crack its mystery. Here is another ancient maxim: “One gets to know the significance of Manlife by acquiring an understanding of Nature.”

This unique cultural background explains why in China, kites have seldom been used in scientific exploration as in the West. The legendary phoenix, the “queen of all birds” is a brainchild of ancient Chinese. Ancient Chinese subsequently made their kites take the shape of the legendary bird for an aesthetic pursuit that stemmed from a sheer imagination that the “bird” so to speak, was able to fly like a real bird. We may safely say that by inventing kites, the ancient Chinese meant to “add wings”to their imagination. Weifang City in Shandong Province is known in China and abroad as the “home of kites? in description of a dazzling array of locally produced kites, and the annual Weifang Kites Festival attracts spectators from the world over. If kites made in ancient China were used for communication or military purpose only, the famous Weifang kites would not have become what they look like now.

Kites did inspire people in the West to produce one type of flying vehicles after another, and by challenging and trying to conquer Nature, they have constantly improved their living standard. Nevertheless, separation of Man from Nature inherent in Western cultures have led to an excess pursuit of material gains and a negligence of Manself, which has subsequently resulted in a host of problems and contradictions in Western society.

Fortunately, people there have come to understand that despite its importance, science cannot resolve all the problems in the world, and they are striving to rebuild the harmony between Man and Nature. It is a long time since kites ceased to be a source of scientific inspiration, yet people in the West have become increasing fond of kites and kite flying, probably to “rediscover”kites.

Separation of the artistic and scientific values featured the development of kites worldwide. With its aesthetic or artistic value, however, kites are now reuniting people vastly different in cultural background.