Asia's flying masterpieces

Chinese kite makers also made extensive use of silk, instead of cotton paper, in their kites. Consequently, the kite's often unsightly frame came into full view once in the air.

More recently, Chinese kite makers have turned their attention to improving the appearance of their kites by painting more varieties of pictures and using themes from widely-known Chinese idioms. Scant attention has been paid, however, to producing kites with unconventional shapes or improving the structure of kites. As a result, traditional Chinese kites lack the diversity of modern kites.

The best kite-designers in China are mostly in their old age and have not passed on their trade. The situation is somewhat similar in Taiwan where young people prefer to purchase mass-produced "junk kite" -- the simple and cheap triangle-shaped (三角翼) ones of French design. The ancient pastime seems to be falling by the wayside amid the fast pace of modern life and children's crippling workload at school.

One kite maker who is keeping the tradition of artistic kites alive in Taiwan is Buteo Huang (黃景楨). In his early 40s, Huang is a leader in the field of kite-design and has received abundant praise for his unique and beautiful works. Through Huang and a few others like him, kites in Taiwan are evolving into a new, more technical realm of structural design while maintaining a traditional appearance.

One of the most unique designs of kites in Asia is the traditional Korean rectangular wind-hole kite or yeon (風穴風箏). The design of the yeon kite allows it to fly almost perpendicularly to the ground, in contrast to most kites which fly parallel to the ground.

In Southeast Asia, an ancient and popular and design is called the moon kite (月箏), which developed from the original Chinese skinny-sparrow (瘦燕) and fat-sparrow (肥燕) kites. Thailand and Malaysia each have several traditional kites. Thailand's owl- and cobra-shaped kites are highly regarded by the international kite-flying community, while Malaysian kites are often equipped with humming instruments (弓鳴器) and contain paintings of local flowers and grass. Malaysian Airlines uses the traditional moon kite as its company logo and Singapore's Changi International Airport used kites for decoration when its new terminal opened in 1990.

Kite designers in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia also make extensive use of wax paper for kite fabric and use wax-dying techniques to beautify their kites.