Flying and whistling wonder
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s a whistling kite!
People usually do not expect to hear sounds coming from kites but Chinese national Zhu Jun designs kites that whistle as they fly.
His kite was cleverly designed and attached with bamboo whistles so that it produced a wooing sound when wind entered the whistles’ airways.
The whistling kite dates back to some 1,000 years ago and according to the 53-year-old kite maker from Nantong City in Jiangsu province, China, it followed a Chinese myth that if a person whistles, they are actually summoning the wind.
“That is how the whistling kite came by, to summon the wind to help fly our kites,” he said at the 17th Pasir Gudang World Kite Festival recently.
Zhu added that he took about two months to make the kite as the 20 whistles on the kite were carved individually and he also hand painted dragons, in conjunction with the dragon year, on the kite using cloth dye.
“Making whistling kites require technical research, as whistles have to be contoured in a way that the wind can enter the slots easily while preventing water from entering to allow the kites to be flown even on rainy days,” he added.
Another Chinese national Yu Mei Lan, 50, had brought along special kites shaped after popular Chinese buildings to the annual kite festival.
The Shanghai native made kites depicting the Shao Lin pagoda, Shanghai Expo Pavillion, a Chinese art house sitting on a dragon boat and the Beijing Olympic ‘bird’s nest’ stadium, to showcase her culture to people from all over the world.
She said that each kite took months to complete as she had to paint each one using a calligraphy brush before stitching the parachute fabric pieces with a sewing machine.
“The Shao Lin pagoda kite is my newest creation and my kites are easy to fold and convenient to carry around as they are lightweight,” she added.