Taking kites to new heights

By Derek Lee
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Feb 04, 2001, Page 17

PHOTO COURTESY OF BUTEO HUANG

One look at the wall decorations in Buteo Huang's (黃景楨) home will tell you that he is definitely a "kite wizard."Breathtakingly beautiful kites of every imaginable shape and color adorn the walls of his home in Sanhsia (三峽), a historic town in Taipei County.

Huang is kite maker for whom artistry and fun are paramount. He takes his creations so seriously that when the makers of the Canadian movie Flying Home asked him to make half a million Canadian goose-shaped kites for promotional purposes Huang refused. He believes that mass production is not an artistic way to make kites.

Huang is a night owl who does his best work in the middle of the night. His painstaking attention to detail allows him to master virtually any design he sets out to create. His close friend, Andrew Hsu (許曉嵐), describes him as a man of complete devotion.

His three-dimensional kite designs are often inspired by everyday objects, but which nobody has previously made into a kite. Designs such as a flying 2m sailboat, an "air-swimming" sea-shell, or an Aborigine totem pole are just some of his creations. Huang makes some of the most improbable ideas literally fly.

A brief history of the kite According to Chinese tradition, the kite was invented for the purpose of military surveillance during the Warring States period (春秋戰國時代, approximately 500BC-200BC). Originally the kite was made of wood, and was alternately called a "wooden sparrow hawk" (木鷂) or "wooden kite" -- a reference to the family of birds that eventually gave its name to the man-made flying objects. After the invention of paper in the Eastern Han Dynasty (first century AD), the wooden content of kites was largely replaced by the new and far lighter material The Chinese term "feng zheng" (風箏) was derived from a man named Li Ye (李鄴) in the Five Dynasties and 10 States period (五代十國時期) in the ninth century AD, who equipped a flying kite with a bamboo flute. When the wind blew through the flute, it created a sound resembling a classic Chinese string instrument called the "zheng" (箏). It is believed that Marco Polo brought a kite back from China in the 13th century. English scholar Joseph Needham holds that the kite is one of the most important scientific inventions to be introduced from the Asia to the West.

Huang recalled when he was eight years old, his elder brothers bought a diamond-shaped kite with a cartoon figure painted on it and flew it so high that it disappeared into the clouds. They called to their little brother and when Huang saw it, he was completely overwhelmed by the scene, as the kite darted in and out of the clouds. The experience was a defining moment in his life.

`[Buteo Huang's] three-dimensional kite designs are often inspired by everyday objects, but which nobody has previously made into a kite.'

"You know, where I lived in the Taiwanese countryside was a great place for kite flying in the 60s. From that day on, I started to make my own kites with materials such as paper and bamboo," said Huang.

Huang also developed a keen interest in birds, visiting the zoo and drawing all the different kinds of birds he found there. He used his drawings as blueprints for his kites, but disastrously, none of the bird-shaped kites could fly.

Prodded by these initial failures, Huang continued to research kite design. A TV program he saw showed a huge centipede-shaped kite flying in the sky, and at this point he became convinced that with enough careful studying and trial and error, he too could make similar kites.

Huang therefore experimented with various shapes -- diamond-shaped, squares and triangles -- but none stayed airborne. Then he came to Taipei for high school, where he had the opportunity to read books about kite-design. Huang then started to study the physics of flight and challenged himself to design three-dimensional kites. Four laid-back college years at Tamkang University (淡江大學) provided the ideal opportunity to work further on his kites, so that other than working to pass his finals, Huang primarily did one thing with his time -- fly kites of his own design.

"When you see a hawk-shaped kite flying freely high above the blue sky, you know the kite is actually made from bamboo sticks and cotton paper. And yet, the kite seems to possess a vitality from the moment it leaves the ground," Huang said. " I am enjoying exactly the same great joy as God in creating things."

Each handmade kite, according to Huang, is infused with sentimental value by its creator and contains untold soul-touching stories.

Taking advantage of his college major in interior design, Huang applies his training to his favorite pastime. Instead of the traditional method of composing a kite from memory, he begins by drawing a design sketch so that the idea and technique involved are fully recorded. The sketch then allows him to refer to his designs to work out ideas for improvements.

Using only memory to make Asian-style kites, which use hundreds of bamboo struts in its structure, a kite designer is unlikely to be able to make many different designs. Huang said that after a few years he sometimes can no longer remember how to make a kite of his own design, because he's simply made too many. His sketches allow him to go back through his files and resurrect his older designs and share his knowledge with kite lovers and hopefully with future generations.

Huang's approach to kite making differs from conventional methods by placing more emphasis on the artistic design of a kite's framework, rather than just focusing on the surface design. Precision, artistic beauty and knowledge of aerodynamics all play key roles in this respect. Making use of original drawing, Huang is able to create kites that are both beautiful and structurally elegant.