Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam-but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Readers will enjoy watching these engaging characters find ways of overcoming webs of social and cultural constraints to achieve a common goal, and the author expresses the pleasures of creating and flying kites-“A few sticks, a little paper, some string. Park ( Seesaw Girl, 1999) tucks traditional Korean customs and values into the story at every turn, while giving each of her young characters a distinct, complementary set of abilities and inclinations it is only because everyone from the king on down helps, directly or indirectly, that Young-sup is, in the end, allowed to fly the kite His victory comes as no foregone conclusion either, but only after a series of hard-fought rounds. Nonetheless, when the boy king himself asks Kee-sup to create a special kite and Youngsup to fly it in the upcoming New Year's kite competition, to Young-sup's outrage their father decides that it's Kee-sup's place as first born to be the flier, despite his lack of aptitude. The fighter kites that 14-year-old Kee-sup builds and decorates are splendid, but it's his younger brother Young-sup who has the innate gift for flying them. Here's a typical fighter kite, which ended up in a tree.Kite making and flying strengthens the bond between two brothers, and earns them a royal friend to boot, in this perceptive tale set in 15th century Korea. What better place to go than the North American Fighter Kite Association if you want more info on the kite-fighting scene there. OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but the wax-coatedĬotton lines these line-touch guys (and girls) use is definitely safer! It's safer than lopping off birds' wings and people's ears with The aim, of course, is to gain more points than your opponent. In that case, the owner of the top line during the next touching of lines wins a point. Touch his or her flying line with the other person's line. When the call "bottom" or "top" is made, each flyer attempts to In line-touch kite fighting, two competitors stand in two circles on the That they are almost dots in the sky! Thousands of feet of line go out. Kids in India or Afghanistan who fly their kites so high and far away The action happens on relatively short lines. The increasingly popular "line touch" form of competition is a realĬontrast to the traditional line-cutting scenario. KiteFights are a crowd that take their simulations fairly seriously :-) Of course there are online games now which simulate kite fighting! This is just like practically every other sport on the planet. That's one reason why I prefer big kites! It's certainly true that the smaller the kite, the harder it is Some designs make an attempt to simplify things for theīeginner though, with a claimed build time of just two hours or so. Of careful work is required to turn out a neatly and accurately made craft. That they tend to use a variety of tools and techniques. These kites are not really beginners projects, in the sense At other times, it tends to fly around in tight Pulling on some line tension causes the kite to fly Instability is the key to controlling these kites, so theyĭon't have tails. Also, the sail is often referred to as the skin. With these kites, the curved cross spar is often referred to as the bow and the vertical spar, the spine. A "line touch" concept is the basis for competition, rather than line cutting!.Modern materials predominate for both sails and spars, although split bamboo is sometimes used as well.Since I have always associated complex bridles with much larger kites. Bridles with more than the traditional two legs are common, for.The kite sail often has two small battens attached near the tail end, defining a wedge-shaped area of sail.With theĬurved cross spar and roughly square diamond shape, the Indian influence The kites are generally quite small, being about 18 inches in height.To sum up, here are some of the differences:
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