Kite-flying: Soaring from the city

MANILA, Philippines – Imagine this for a moment. Children, running across an open field, launching kites into the sky. Imagine the sun on faces, the tanned skin, the tousled hair. They look happy and healthy, and they most likely are.

If this is a familiar scene from your childhood, then you belong to the generation whose early years were defined by afternoons of kite-flying. Unfortunately, many of us are not part of this generation, and it’s not hard to see why. 

We’ve come to an age where our spaces are suddenly interrupted by soaring buildings and power lines hanging overhead, where day after day even children take to the mall or look to gadgets for entertainment.

Kite-flying, believed to have originated from China, seems to have slowly become obsolete in our age of technological dependency.

Reviving the tradition

Kite enthusiast Yolly Ongkingco is aware that kite-flying is a slowly dying tradition in the Philippines.

“Computer games are much more exciting to kids,” she says. “Plus, parents are busy nowadays, so families don’t have enough time to go out.”

Ongkingco is part of the Kite Association of the Philippines (KAP). Her husband Orly is the president.

“Our goal in KAP is to not let any child grow up without experiencing making his own kite and flying it by himself.”

The group attempts to bring back the kite-flying tradition into the consciousness of the Filipinos. KAP organizes kite-flying events as well as conducts kite-flying and kite-making workshops in schools.

Flying in the air

Ongkingco has experienced firsthand the benefits of kite-flying. It is, she says, a form of exercise. Kite fliers run and play under a good amount of sunlight.

The benefits also go beyond the physical.

“When you’re flying a kite, you’re somehow attached to the sky,” she says. “You feel like it’s you flying in the air.”

She says that the feeling of being connected to an object in flight is indescribable, and brings a sense of fulfillment.

Most of all, she adds, kite-flying brings a family together. Out in the field, the father can teach his children, with him holding the string that his children tug with him, all while the mother tends to their needs, joining in the fun once in a while.

“It’s a fun family activity. It strengthens the family and encourages interaction.”

She contrasts with a child playing with the computer, an exclusive experience that shuts out everyone else around him.

Wind-seekers

Because kite-flying only requires kite, wind, and open space, it can be an affordable outdoor activity. Families can make their own kites using sticks, glue, and crepe or Japanese paper. Kites can also be bought from malls, markets, or kite merchandisers.

“The wind is free. And so is the space,” says Ongkingco.

She says the waning interest could be attributed to the fact there are less available spaces. She advises enthusiasts to look for open spaces far from power lines, trees, and roads.

The search for space is not as easy as it once was. The Fort, back when it was mostly a grassy field, used to be an ideal site for kite fliers until it was developed into a commercial zone,

Ongkingco suggests Luneta Park, Picnic Grove in Tagaytay as well as Nuvali and Greenfield City Sports Field in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Go out and fly

Ongkingco encourages families tired of bonding in shopping malls to think of kite-flying as an exciting way to bond. It is for families searching for alternative holidays that desire to instill the love of the outdoors in their children.

She is positive the country’s kite-flying tradition can be fully revived. For as long as flying kites continues to charm one family, one person, one child, it will never become entirely obsolete. The ancient aircraft so long overlooked may still soar its way into modern society. 

Inspired? Go on an make your own kite. Here’s how:

– Rappler.com