In kite flying, nostalgia can be disastrous

A recent news report in China Daily about the International Kite Festival in Weifang, Shandong province, caught my attention.

I have warm childhood memories of the time I spent with my father making my first kite. I had just turned 5 years old.

With his help, I tied together a few sticks of lightweight balsa wood, and he helped me cut notches in the ends of the sticks with a pocket knife. (I am grateful for this help, as I am now an adult with 10 intact fingers.)

Then, following Dad's instructions for measurements－he was a mathematician and a stickler for numbers－I cut a sheet of dark blue paper to the right diamond shape, folded the edges around lengths of string and then attached the paper to the balsa wood frame at the notches. It measured about 1.5 meters from top to bottom.

I vividly remember painting a picture on the front of the kite in bright yellow－a jovial, grinning, round-faced Man in the Moon, surrounded by stars. (Man in the Moon is the name for the figure whose face seems engraved on the moon's surface, peering down at Earth.)

Of course, when I looked at Chinese kites on the internet recently, they put my little effort to shame. But I didn't know any better.

Anyway, Dad and I took the Man in the Moon to a grassy park. He held it facing the wind and called out instructions to me. When I had backed up far enough, he gave the kite a little toss, and I was thrilled as I played out the string and the thing took to the sky.

It was nothing short of magical.

In Weifang recently, more than 1,500 colorful kites dotted the air at various altitudes－strings of little diamond kites, serpentine dragon kites, box kites, phoenix kites, butterfly kites, lotus flower kites and (name your own here) kites. The event ran until Wednesday.

The smile of my humble Man in the Moon would have sadly turned upside-down had he been in company like this, clearly outclassed.

Still, I have my memories, and that's what led to a little too much magic. Sometimes warm childhood memories lead to trouble later in life.

Recalling that happy experience with my Dad, I decided to recreate it not long ago. This was a mistake: My memories were a bit too glossy. I chose a commercial nylon kite that was more than three times the size of the Man in the Moon. It was a monster. I got hundreds of meters of string to play with.

On the day I chose for my excursion down memory lane, the wind was blowing briskly. Perfect, I thought.

Wrong.

Truth is, there is such a thing as too much wind for a kite this size. I launched it skyward and the force nearly lifted me off the ground. It felt like a Boeing 757.

My kite blew left and right, out of control, and did loops and dives. Other nearby kite-flyers muttered obscenities and shouted at me as my string crossed theirs. I don't blame them, but I was helpless.

I tried to crank the unruly monster back in, but the handle broke, and the kite made a run for the far horizon, the spool spinning as if I had hooked a flying swordfish.

Thinking fast, I wrapped the string around the base of a nearby statue to prevent the kite from going any farther. But then, to my dismay, the rough stone of the base frayed the string, and snap! The untethered kite flew off into the growing storm, never to be seen again－except maybe on the moon.

The other people nearby were disgusted, and I hung my head in shame as I slunk back to my car.

I could have used a little Chinese advice－like "Please leave kites to the experts".