During China's Cultural Revolution, kite-maker Kong Xiangze was beaten senseless and his work destroyed, but today he faces a force more powerful than Communist wrath -- the indifference of the young generation.
When Red Guards attacked his Beijing home one fateful day 37 years ago, they dragged him into a small room, turned off the light and pounded him relentlessly, causing permanent injury to his right hand.
"After that, I couldn't use it as well as before," said Kong, now 83. "That's why I decided to pass on my skills to my son."
Sadly, the Kongs' kite-making traditions may stay within the narrow boundaries of the family, as China's young and middle-aged turn to more modern pastimes.
There is not much that Kong, who claims to be a 75th generation descendant of ancient sage Confucius, can do to keep his art alive from his small courtyard home in a narrow alley in the western part of the capital.
His daughter, Kong Linghui, who may have saved him from death at the hands of the Red Guards by "volunteering" to work as a farmer to show her revolutionary credentials, is worried it is a losing battle.
"Young people are only interested in studying computing, and even that topic is not something they are willing to devote themselves fully to," said the daughter, now 57, and herself an accomplished kite-maker.
"They may be willing to buy ready-made kites, but they have no interest in building them themselves," she says.
Ancient records suggest that kites were in use in China as early as 2,500 years ago, and Italian traveler Marco Polo is said to have brought a sample back from his lengthy stay in the Middle Kingdom.
The disappearance of kites, and the tradition they represent, is a concern for Zhang Shirong, a retired Beijing worker, who goes to Ritan Park in the center of the city every day with his home-made kite.
"You get a lot of fresh air, and it also helps stretch your neck when you look up at the kite, and you get to exercise your eyesight, too," he says.
"Young people miss out on all this because they don't have the time," he says.
Almost four decades ago, it was also the young who posed the biggest threat to China's kite-making traditions, at that time because they entered the Cultural Revolution's most radical groups in massive numbers.
The Communist Party-induced movement sought to eradicate kites as a legacy of China's oppressive feudal past, and the Kongs were not the only kite-making family to suffer as a result.
The Ha family was one of Beijing's two most famous kite-making dynasties, and its eldest, Ha Kuiming, knew they were an obvious target for the violent ultra-leftists.
He and his wife spent three days and nights at a stove in the back of their courtyard, burning kite-making tools, sketches and notes representing more than 100 years of the family's accumulated experience.
For the duration of the Cultural Revolution, Ha worked as a cook in a canteen, but went home every night to secretly build small kites and write down notes on kite-making in tiny booklets.
"He was determined to recover the knowledge that had gone up in smoke," says his son, Ha Yiqi, who was in his early teens then.
Ha Yiqi took over the family business from his father in the late 1970s and now heads a thriving enterprise, running a factory with 80 workers on the outskirts of Beijing.
He grew up immersed in the ancient craft, and his works -- ranging from palm-sized butterflies and swallows to 3m long dragons -- sell for up to US$2,400.
Despite the big money involved, finding an heir to the business could be troublesome, Ha Yiqi admits.
His daughter loved to watch her father at work when she was a little girl, but now she is 13, Ha is torn between his desire to pass on the torch and his determination to allow his child to follow her own dreams.
"She's more interested in math, and we don't want to force her to do something else," he says. "So it's hard to say if she'll be able to carry on the family tradition."
Despite the wide array of hobbies available to China's youth, some kite aficionados are convinced the tradition will survive, even if it will be less popular than in the past.
When SARS spread to large parts of China earlier this year, many urban residents suddenly found kite-flying was an ideal way to inhale fresh air and avoid the crowds.
The habit may stick even now that SARS has gone -- at least for the time being -- and Ha Yiqi is encouraged each time he sees a kite in the rear window of a car heading for the Beijing suburbs.
Meanwhile, not all the capital's young have surrendered to computer games and the Internet.
"I like flying kites," said Samantha Wang, a student. "I've got several at home."
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