The History of Kites

The secrets of the true origin of kites and kite flying have been buried by time. Folklore has it that the tradition of kite flying is founded in remembrance of the dead. According to mythology, on Qingming Festival (around April 5, the traditional day of paying homage to the dead), the closed door to the nether world of the dead will open; so people fly kites that they believe will traverse the realms of the dead to send their love and grief over their loss. Another folk belief is that spring is the time of life reawakening; people can release the bad luck and misfortune accumulated during the previous year by flying a kite in spring. Custom requires the string that pulls the kite be cut to let the kite go, and with it go all the bad luck and evil spirits that have harassed the family. So, no one should pick up a fallen kite and all the bad things it carries.

The earliest historical reference to kites in Chinese records is one made from wood. Sometime during the 4th or 5th century B.C., the famous Chinese philosopher Mozi spent three years building a wooden bird, which could stay aloft for a whole day. One of his students, a prestigious master carpenter in Chinese history called Lu Ban, emulated his technique; he cut bamboo into thin sticks, smoothed their surface, and heated them over fire to get the shape he wanted. His finished bamboo bird could fly continuously for three days. This was the prototype of the kite. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cai Lun (a.61-121) invented papermaking, and people began to make paper kites; they called them "paper birds."