Last Saturday my colleagues at Churp Churp decided to organize a “kite-flying” session at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus.
Growing up I have read so much about kites, seen so many pictures and even a couple of movies that involved kite flying but I’ve never ever flown a kite before. After 26 years of life, I finally decided that it was time for me to learn to fly a kite. Kites after all are one of the oldest inventions around with its origin dating approximately 2,800 years ago in China. Since then kites have been used for all sorts of different things even for military applications, according to: Wikipedia
In 637, Kim Yu-sin, a Korean general of Silla rallied his troops to defeat rebels by lofting a kite with a straw man which looked like a burning ball flying to the sky.
Russian chronicles mention prince Oleg of Novgorod use kites during the siege of Constantinople in 906 A.D.: “and he crafted horses and men of paper, armed and gilded, and lifted them into the air over the city; the Greeks saw them and feared”.
Lets not forget that Benjamin Franklin in 1750 used a kite to prove that lightning is electricity too. Back at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus though, by the time I got there there were already Churpers there trying to fly their kites.
I had no idea what I was doing so I had to ask a fellow Churper to teach me..
I didn’t manage to get the kite up though and we blamed it on the kite… (when it was actually because of our lack of talent). Some of the other Churpers managed to fly theirs really high after all.
Then Vivian here came to save the day.
She told me to use her kite and she helped me hold it to throw it in the air.
I struggled at first. It still didn’t manage to get far at all, it always ended up on the ground like this.
I even tried running as fast as I could pulling the kite behind me but that didn’t help as much. Then I began to learn some things like how to watch the wind direction and how I have to constantly pull and release the string so that the kite can continue to build momentum. And in no time… voila! I got my kite in the air. I wish I had a picture of that but Nicholas who was holding my camera was nowhere to be found during my moment of glory. I do however have a picture of me flying Simon’s kite later on.
Simon had this big bird kind of kite he bought from a shop in Desa Parkcity.
And this is me flying it.
I don’t know how to describe it but having the kite fly in the air is a lot of fun. It’s like you feel this real sense of satisfaction once it gets in the air and it’s a constant struggle having to keep it up. You have to keep releasing the string at times and pulling it back at other times for it to keep it’s momentum. This repetitive action gets really tiring on the arms after a while but couple it with the running you have to do and you’ve got great exercise going there.
That’s unlike of course some of the lazy Nuffies who just wanted to sit by the side under the shade and watch. Booo!! Haha
Here’s Vivian and Michelle sitting down. Vivian towards the end was really tired too so she was just sitting down.
Here’s a picture of her earlier in the day getting her kite up in the air.
And some pictures of the kites of the other Churpers there.
Flying kites was a lot of fun and I’m actually quite excited to do it again some time. It’s funny how we’ve all forgotten this age old recreational game and not turned to digital games to keep us entertained. Going back to these traditional games though was quite a change for me and I really had a lot of fun. Possibly even more fun than playing Starcraft 2 *gasp* (did I just say that).
Anyway if Churpers wanna do it again, we’ll probably organize another kite outing. Thanks Taylor’s University for letting us kite on their beautiful campus.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space